View my page on OpenWine Consortium
A while back I predicted that Facebook would most likely be the “Facebook of Wine” but today I’m not so sure after spending a few minutes inside the OpenWine Consortium social network.
“Great, just what we need, yet another social network,” I expect to hear from some but hear me out first.
Unlike Facebook, the OpenWine Consortium is narrowly focused on the wine industry and seems to be initially interested in bringing together Wine 2.0 developers and wine industry business leaders for networking and to drive open standards online. Early membership is a who’s who of the wine blogosphere where I’m sure lively discussions will ensue, when we’re not on Twitter. I also don’t expect to see all those annoying requests to compare movie quiz scores or install another application as is the standard on Facebook these days.
Where his goes is anyone’s guess but I’m impressed with the potential I see with this platform. If you are in the wine industry or interested in Wine 2.0 then join me.
Thanks for the post Tim. We knew there was interest but the response has been just tremendous.
This is basically going to be “Consortium2.0” – its a community of like-minded individuals can interact and do whatever they want in this dedicated wine social network with some organized industry efforts that the board members/admins will put together.
In an old school industry consortium there is a community and meetings, etc… and a community that gets together to solve problems. For “wine2.0” we thought we’d work on an industry consortium in a 2.0 flare – create an engaged and lively community and just facilitate organizing around particular ideas for the benefit of the entire industry. Making it a sort of dedicated wine community interacting and connecting with each other but also with an industry purpose (there is a charter up there with a comments section if anyone wants to comment)…Consortium2.0…
Robert McIntosh made a good point, this is an old idea thats oddly become new again – its almost an online Guild.
At any rate, this is rather than having just a Facebook group a full-blown community (RSS feeds and all). In fact, the “Groups” function BETTER than Facebook in that they include dedicated forums and other functions (including RSS and email updates).
100+ in the first day…really a lively community already!
OpenWine seems to be moving along pretty well. Today (April 4 2008, about two months after the site launched) there are 662 members and 38 groups.
Hopefully this growth trend will continue and accelerate.