What’s Going On With Wine Blogging?
In October 2004, the best listing of wine blogs on the Internet, listed a total of 26 blogs devoted to wine. Today, that number is at 81. More than a three-fold increase in the number of wine blogs being tracked in less than a year.
What’s going on?
Here’s what I think:
1. Blogging has gone mainstream in the past year, spurring vast numbers to try their hand.
2. It’s not difficult to achieve a huge percentage increase in wine blogs when you start with 26.
3. Yet, the wine blog universe is "nichifyng"…we have wine blogs devoted not only to wine in general but to very specific wine topics: winery web sites, Pinot Noir, Rose, specific countries, specific wineries, winery tasting rooms, etc.
4. By all the reports I get and from my own experience more and more people are turning to wine blogs for their literary satisfaction. Traffic to wine blogs is increasing.
5. Wine bloggers hare becoming a common and legitimate audience for publicists and marketers. A number of publicists and PR agencies regularly distribute press releases to wine bloggers as well as invite them to cover events. Wark Communications now does this regularly as well.
6. Still, no wine blog has broken out of its relative anonymity and become a critical element of the "wine media" in the way some wine magazines, wine columnists and other wine websites have. But it’s only a matter of time.
7.Based on my own surveys, the people who frequent wine blogs tend to be VERY wine & food Savvy, signs of a communications medium that is still in its infancy.
8. The only thing holding back a very good wine blog from attracting significant readership is the willingness to engage in a serious marketing campaign to attract readers.
9. Nevertheless, we are beginning to see the mainstream wine media and trade media reference wine blog-originated stories as well as cover wine blogging as a story.
10. Those 81 wine blogs will seem quaintly small in number in another 12 months.
I think the main reason behind the lack of ‘serious marketing campaign’ is the lack of capital. Most wine bloggers are engaged in other activities (full time job for example) and have little time, experience or money to promote their website.
Tom
Andrew has a point. I’d love to be able to devote much more time to my wine blogs however its my real job that pays the bills – but only if I keep working at it.
One thing I have read (and I wish I could find the link) is that blogging (in general) seems to have peaked. I try to keep up with the number of wine blogs via places like Blogshares (http://blogshares.com/index.php) and Wine Blog Watch (http://wineblogwatch.arrr.net/) and its pretty clear that only a small number are keep updated with regular postings.
Mike
Andrew is right. It’s really a measure of time and commitment that prevents marketing of a blog. However, it will happen eventually. That I can guarantee. The small number of blogs that update regularly is probably a function of most people having greater expectations of their time and ability. I wish more wine blogs were updated regularly. Still, I think we will see even more numbers of wine blogs in 12 months.
Tom,
It’s funny you posted this, as I noticed the same thing the other day. When I started my wine blog in August of 2003, their was only one other wine blog I found at the time (not to say there weren’t others), wineblog.blogspot.com, but he had given up after less then a year. I did the same a year ago because I didn’t think anyone was reading it. Most of the new wine blogs aren’t read by many people yet. As with other forms of journalism, talent and skill don’t go unnoticed by readers and those that excel are the ones that recieve readership. Blogging is just a medium, and those that write well and have a unique site will be noticed, in turn encouraging more entries. Just my 2 cents.
Wine Blogs Are Gathering Momentum
Time to toot our blogging horns. Wine blogging is gaining in numbers and quality. There are more blogs, more discerning readers and a wide open field ahead…
ViaFERMENTATIONS
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I’m not surprised that the wine blogosphere is becoming “nichified”; the entire blogosphere has the same quality, since many blogs are about particular special interests, and many wine blogs intentionally appeal to only a specific audience. Ours is an adjunct to our wine-tasting club’s website (Australian Wine Society of Toronto) and is meant to be of interest to our members and other local readers, so contains information about Australian wine, Australia, and food/wine events in Toronto.
Wine blogging a growing phenom
Tom Wark over at Fermentations has a entry today on wine blogging wherein he discussing the huge increase in wine blogs over the past year.
I have to concur with much of what the other readers have said. To blog is to be niched. (Put that on a t-shirt) I don’t expect a huge readership, just the right readership. People genuinely curious on what my perspective might be.
As a marketing tool, I think there are some possibilities to be explored. Take ten bloggers in ten different niches, have them write ten entries for ten days, all of them referencing your website/product. Measure the response to guage blogging’s viral capabilities.
What’s the biggest hurdle with my blog? Finding the time to write apart from my main business activities. I see my wineblog as a potential business asset and hope to use it to gain entry in Spanish wine focused marketing & PR services for my communications company, but as with everything, paying projects take precedence.
Wine Blog’s
So I’ll bite, found an interesting article on one site about another site. Turns out there are a lot of us doing this wine blog thing and in my opinion that is a good thing. What I tend to see when surfing these wine blogs is that they(for the most pa…
Tom,
Actually there are somewhat more than about 120 wine blogs on the internet at this point (although some may quibble about which ones count, as many are in disuse, or haven’t been updated in some time). That’s the number that I’m tracking currently, which includes blogs in other languages. I’m assuming the number is higher than that also because, well, I don’t know how to spell “wine blog” in Croatian.
Alder
94 now listed on wineblogwatch. As opposed to 367 food blogs on foodpornwatch. It really has exploded, though!