Wine Social Media Types – a Diagram

I’ve been compiling a list of the best wine bloggers in the States.

It immediately becomes apparent that not only is there an issue defining what is a wine blogger – but also what is wine social media!

So before I went any further with my wine blogger list I thought I’d try to define the different types. And given they overlap so much I’ve visually shown this in the Wine Social Media Types diagram below.

Examples of Wine Social Media Types

• Free Blog – DrVino (no paid sections at all)
• Forum – Wine Lovers Page (200,000 posts on 30,000 topics)
• Webcast – WineLibrary TV, Grape Radio (lots of other YouTube channels as well)
• Paid/Pro Blog – Jancis Robinson (part paid, part free)
• Online magazine – Palate Press, Wine Spectator (format of a magazine though may actually be blogging software, often requires a subscription)
• Facebook – Wine-Searcher (fan page)
• Twitter – @TheWineHub
• Mobile App – Drync Wine

How the content is generated

One way of defining social media types is by how the content is generated. So if it’s completely user generated then it’s a forum, if it’s author posting with comments it’s a blog, if it’s (paid) columnists with ads then it’s a magazine (with or without comments).

Whether it’s paid or free

Another way is to say that if a blog has a subscription fee component then it’s really an online magazine or a paid/pro blog.

It really doesn’t seem that clear

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given the speed of change in technology, but there are overlaps everywhere, and I guess it may be years or even decades before this starts to coalesce into clearer categories.

But who really cares?

When you can jump from an instructive wine tasting note by Jancis Robinson, to a humorous video from 1 Wine Dude, then an insightful wine industry post at Fermentation. The diversity of styles and approaches should be celebrated.

Having said that… I need to be clear about the different types for a wine blogger ranking I’m compiling (from a commercial – wine retailer perspective). So I guess do I care.

What’s your thoughts? Have I missed a category, over simplified, or perhaps even plain wrong ?