I have a theory.

And it’s one that I hope will be proven totally false.

My theory is that the economy will get better, and it will rebound to more solid ground relatively soon-ish (within two years).

That’s not the part that I hope is proven false, by the way.  I’m getting to that.  So let me finish, okay?  Geez!  You always do that!

Anyway, the part that I hope is proven false is that the economic turnaround will result in fewer people blogging about wine.

Why?

Because I think that the steady stream of wine samples being sent to many bloggers will, once the economic picture gains a decidedly more rosy tint, dry up.

Not all bloggers will see the sample pool evaporate, but many of them will.

Like I said – I hope I’m wrong.  But I’ve got a sneaking suspicion… an elusive, vague and chilling notion… the Spider-Sense is definitely tingling over this possibility…

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This week, Alder Yarrow posted video coverage of the Wine Writing & Social Media panel discussion that he moderated at the most recent Wine Writers Symposium held in Napa.

I was fortunate to have attended the Symposium and to have sat in on the panel that Alder moderated.  It’s great to have the video captured for posterity, and in hindsight I’m not sure whether to laugh or to cry at the state of wine writing and its monetization possibilities.

In summary, there have probably never been so many challenges combined with so many potential opportunities when it comes to writing about wine and making any money while doing it.

The challenge is that, as we said in the panel discussion, “the genie is out of the bag” when it comes to free content and wine: people expect to be able to get high quality content about wine on the Internet, and pay nothing for it.  This is putting severe downward pressure on wine writing payment in general.

The opportunity is that the market for consuming information about wine has never been larger, and the price of entry is free, for now.  Personally, I fully expect that market to become saturated, after which it will become expensive to enter, and it won’t expand again for probably ten years.  If you want the details on that, well, you’re gonna have to watch my not-so-pretty face on the video!  Actually, fellow panelists Doug Cook, Steve Heimoff, and Patrick Comiskey make the video well worthwhile despite my inappropriately timed humor.

Would love to know your thoughts on this – please check out the video, and shout out in the comments; where is the future of wine writing and its monetization going?  To hell in a hand basket? Or soaring to new heights?

Cheers!

Ok.  I wasn’t going to post about this, because quite frankly I’m starting to feel like I am treading a very fine line between self-serving, ego-stroking promotion of this blog and giving legitimate props to folks who are helping to make 1WineDude.com successful.

This kind of tears me up because I’ve been blessed with some great shout-outs for the blog. Naturally, one wants to kind of celebrate that but also, and more importantly, give some attention, thanks and promotion to the people who have been kind to you.

But I think it makes for some potentially terrible reading.  At best, it comes off as (hopefully short and) heartfelt; at worst… “Weeeeee! Lookatme!” boring.  Of course, not acknowledging a shout-out has the potential of leaving the other party feeling scorned.

What’s a blogger to do?

Scylla, meet Charybdis…

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Last week, I found out that I finished in the top ten of PostRank.com’s list of the most engaging wine blogs of 2009.  PostRank’s list is based on algorithms that measure online social network reactions to blog articles.  I think, anyway – it all seems a little complicated and makes me glad that I like writing instead of math.

I’m pleased as spiked sangria punch to be sharing the top 10 list with such talented and esteemed company.

I’m less pleased at how similar we all seem to be.

As you will note from this handy inset graphic, the list is comprised almost entirely of white males (click to embiggen):

To be fair, both Decanter and Lenndevours are blogs with talented staff, not all of whom are white males.  Just the vast majority of whom are white males.

The lack of diversity is kind of odd, and sad.  I wonder if we represent the majority of wine consumers?  I doubt it, considering the studies that point to women being the driving force behind wine consumption (especially in the U.S.).

I’ll stop now as I expect to get flamed for even bringing up the topic (those of you who know me have figured out by now that I can’t help myself) and turn to the somewhat safer discussion of which 2009 1WineDude.com blog posts PostRank measured as being especially engaging.  But I’ll warn you, that this list had me scratching my head just as much as I did over the ‘white guy convention syndrone’ of the top 10 list…

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