While I enjoy your style, I’m afraid that your comments reflect you being a bit like the fabled boy with his finger in the dyke. In reality, people are not going to see what the ‘Siskel & Eberts’ of the world are recommending, but are rather going to sites like rottentomatoes.com or getting feedback from people through those dreaded tools like twitter or facebook. Similarly, people use peer reviews on numerous sites as guides on buying any number of products. Assuming that those prevailing winds will not impact the world of wine, is tantamount to sticking your head in the sand.

Having said that, I do concur with you that there are numerous snake oil salesmen ‘selling’ their views of the future that harken back to the dot-com era. Today as then, keeping your finger on the pulse of where things are trending are generally more effective than buying into some utopian theory.

But you are right that twitter content is not likely to be as useful as CellarTracker on your phone anytime soon but I could easily DM at least three wine geeks that I am connected to in Duluth via twitter for a personal recommendation in real time.

Would I rather sift through yelp on my phone, or get a recommendation?

Cheers,
Alan

I’ll be in Duluth supporting my wholesaler in February and will definitely visit Au Contraire. Thanks for the recommendation and I will surely Yelp about it.

I’m a Yelper. One of my problems with it is there is not a very good filter for customers with a grudge. One example is a positive Yelp about a restaurant I posted and unsolicited, out of nowhere, another Yelper sends me a nasty-gram because she doesn’t like the owner. Sure enough, she ripped them in Yelp, most likely out of a personal matter, not a food quality, service or business matter.

I gather we’ll see more wine related iPhone Apps down the road, but don’t forget about the San Francisco based Nirvino.com. They cover the gamut beyond wine to include cocktails, beer, tea and coffee. Power to the community!

Neil