Fuze Blog | © Bryan Landaburu (aka Willie Vega) | Reno-Sparks-Nevada Blogger

Wine Retailing, An Uncorked Opportunity (were it not for lame laws)

Today I was skimming through this month's Internet Retailer and I was impressed with several things.

1. the general tone of the publication is one of success stories and best practices.  This is refreshing when all we hear is doom-gloom about the economy.
2. The magazine is about a third of an inch thick.  The advertisers are not pulling back ads to this viable audience.  Everything from marketing to analytics to warehousing...and on. Its full of advertisers.  This says something when nearly every other business publication has been reduced to pamphlet size because advertisers are running for the hills.
3. Some great articles on what some very successful merchants are doing online.  There is still a great business there, but the challenges are very steep.

All in all i am thrilled to see this.  Not even sure what made me devote 15min of time to it but i am glad i did.  As an agency fairly vested in eCommerce clients businesses, this was a very cool read for me.

I think the challenges that face online merchants are steeper than ever.  There is no longer the ability to just throw open a store, buy some AdWords and start sellin'.  That no longer scales.  Merchants have to focus on strategy, architecture, UI design, development, merchandising, up-sell, cross-sell, pull, push, viral, email, SEO, SEM, PPC, analytics, testing, scalability, and on and on.  To be a player in the game, you have to bury yourself and your team in the concept and its success...go all in...or be relegated to being what i refer to as Martha's Yarn Barn, a hobby business you spend your hard earned savings on but probably shouldn't. If however, you embrace all thats possible, and focus, there are still a lot of opportunities and markets to tap into, and build a better mousetrap. Unless of course, government(s) over-regulates online commerce.

One particular industry I am fascinated with is the wine industry. The related article below about laws regulating online wine retailers/shops gave me the motivation for this post.

• Read the full article called: Patchwork of Laws on InternetRetailer.com

A confessed wine-o, I am a member of several wine clubs and in addition, I buy a lot of wine online. I have my favorites but I'm always open to experimenting with new brands.  As I read the IR article I realized that I have the privilege of living in Nevada, one if the 15 states that legally allow retail-to-consumer wine shipments. Nine additional states allow a sorta "gray area" acceptance, but could choose to enforce established regulations on internet merchants at any time. 15 STATES - WTF!?  While I can respect every state (except the Silver one) not wanting to legalize prostitution; we're talking wine here folks. Other than Utah, I certainly don't see why there are 34 other states that won't allow this. Some of these states have drive-thru liquor stores, but wont allow a bottle of Zinfandel to grace a UPS truck's cargo bay. The basis of most regulations date back to prohibition. As I digested this, it got me thinking.  Online wine stores are a big business now but imagine if laws change and more states (except Utah) open up their regulations. What happens next is that online wine retailing becomes a land rush. 

"Wine.com CEO Richard Bergsund estimates U.S. retail wine sales at about $25 billion, with between 1% and 2% of that currently conducted online. “Most categories that don’t have regulatory constraints do about 3% to 5% online, so that is where this seems to be going long-term. If it gets to 5%, that would be over $1 billion,” he says."

Great future opportunities await folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, WineZap, WinesTillSoldOut, and others who have a strong hold and online reputation that will always keep them on the top seat.  But, there are also ripe business opportunities for smart entrepreneurs, small wineries, big wineries, and others who want to break into a boom industry. The state laws simply make no sense and hopefully they'll change...someday.

Well thats my story for today. I have been a little absentee from my posting lately because of a variety of personal life changes afoot in my little world. Rest assured my loyal 10's of readers, I am still full of "it".

Till later...drink more wine.

BL

PS
Sparks Farmers Market starts this Thursday, June 12th. Fuze balconies will be open for VIP's (and even some IPs). Call ahead for reservations. :-)

If you like Twitter, You'll Love Twhirl

So i admit that i really was skeptical on Twitter at first, i didn't get it.  Now that i have guzzled the Kool-Aid, I really enjoy using it.  That said, i find the twitter site cumbersome and and i cant always punch out SMS on my tiny little keys.  What to do?  On my Mac's there is a cool little application (similar to IM) called Twitteriffic, that works great but when i get back on my main computers, there hasn't been anything for Windows that is similar.  Until now.

I will talk about the one i have found to be the BEST cross platform Twitter tool to fuel your micro-blogging lifestyle.  Its called Twhirl.  One geeky-cool thing is that its powered by Adobe Air which makes it pretty cutting edge.  It is infinitely customizable, and makes tweet'ing a breeze.

If youre an outlook 2007 user, you may also like OutTwit, which is an Outlook plug in that puts a twitter feed right into your inbox.  I like it too but for something all around, Twhirl. is a winner.  See Mac geeks, there is cool stuff for Windows PC's too!

Try it. You'll like it. And, if you want to follow my boring life, visit:  twitter.com/fuze

Talk amongst yourselves.

BL

Trusting your world to web services: Basecamp outage

In our ever connected lifestyles we put a TON of faith in the availability of these whiz-bang hosted web services being unconditional and forever.  Some businesses rely completely on the functionality of 3rd party hosted applications for the management of their extended teams, clients, projects, and in some cases all aspects of their business.

Today, our project management application, the wildly popular Basecamp from 37signals took a big dump on us and was unavailable for almost 6hrs.  Here is their story:

• Basecamp Outage Explained

It caused us a bit of gas because our standing project meetings had to be conducted manually from memory and we were not able to open new projects as we normally would.  For us, it was a speck of inconvenience, but for others who are more reliant on Basecamp and similar systems, i can imagine today was not fun at all.

I am sure Basecamp will "refund" us , and others who complain for the 6hrs of downtime, but the $150 or so that amounts to, doesn't come close to lost time and productivity. Buried deep in some SLA I am certain there is a limit of 37signals liability, but who reads those? I wonder if this should be a wake up call  to myself and others, that this is always a possibility? Should we have a plan B "at the ready" like we do for backups and file servers? Is this just the nature of the beast?  Thinking about it, there are 20ish web services I use on a daily/weekly basis, some of which I pay for, some of which are free, but I rely on them to keep me organized, billing, working, and enjoying life.  What is a fair expectation of availability of these services?

We'll keep using Basecamp for the time being, but this outage certainly has me looking at alternate solutions, and that is something I would have NEVER considered until today.

WBV

Hot Damn, I'm an Oracle Stockholder

Interesting to me though maybe not everyone...a big enterprise software acquisition was announced yesterday.  Oracle has agreed to acquire my Alma Mater, BEA Systems for $8.5 Billion.  This is a great fit for Oracle and very likely good for BEA as well. Rumors about IBM or Oracle buying BEA were flying way back during my years there, so this has been on the table for quite some time. I am anxious to see how it all shakes out. 

I also hope all my friends that are still there enjoy the ride. For the record, Ellison has better boats, but Alfred has way better cars!

BL

Bulimic computer epidemic: Reaction to New Apple Laptop

Couldn't resist passing along this "thin-eNVy" parody (courtesy of Nalt) for the new Apple Macbook Air (starting at only $3500). Short & sweet...enjoy.

Thin is [always] in!

WBV

Real Estate MLS Standards? It's about g'damn time!

As an agency that is quite vested in the real-estate industry, I have to say that this movement to develop a standard for MLS listing is about the best news I have head in years.  For anyone with significant RE clients, dealing with the various issues with data provided in MLS feeds presents one challenge after another.  Its a nightmare.  Outside of integration of listings into a brokers website, you also face challenges of feeding your listings to loads of aggregate and services that are used by the general public (ex. Trulia, Zillow, etc.). 

Things are looking up on the horizon as some of these significant players press for standards.

• This ClickZ article made me salivate this morning

Fingers crossed that this happens at breakneck speed.  God speed RESO! Make it happen.  Nothing but good can come of this.

WBV

A couple new downloads I'm diggin'

Tonight, while watching a marathon of Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 1 on DVD (one of my best Christmas gifts) I started surfin the ol' web and realized I had downloaded Flock some time ago and never installed it.  As i got it installed and started tinkering with it, I really like it. 

The browser is Firefox based with a big juicy wrapper of social media, web2.0, whatever-the-frig you want to call it and its really, really cool.  I can log into my Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, TypePad, del.icio.us, etc., etc. accounts and watch them all mash up before my eyes...all the while without disrupting my standards compliant browsing experience. Its got some great image and web clipping functions built right in, detects feeds, has a lot of the same plug-ins as Firefox, overall there's a lot to explore. I will try it as my default browser for a bit and see if it sticks.  So far, so cool. One thing to note is that Flock is a little Yahoo heavy and a little light on the Google.  Would really like to see Flock include GoogleBookmarks in its whopping list of 2 online favorites options. 

Another service that came to me as a result of Flock is Me.dium.  This is a really sexy browser inclusion that gives surfing and social a whole new paint job.  Some serious web/tech going on here.  Get some friends together and surf together, commenting and clipping and researching silly. I am anxious to try this on our next big web project as we get started as a team doing research.  Another service i recommend taking for a test drive. 

As always, my gamertag on both services is 'FUZE'. Give 'em a whirl if you are social-ite (or wanna be) like me.

Enjoy.

E-Greetings I Can Appreciate

I hate e-cards as much as I hate Keep Tahoe Blue bumper stickers (water isn't blue hippies, so last time i checked, as long as the sky is blue, our fair Tahoe will "appear" blue as well). It's funny how many choose to celebrate their cause & 'tell you what they're all about' from the rear of their cars in the form of license plate frames or the proverbial bumper sticker(s).  Not the point of this post, but a good conversation starter at your next pancake breakfast.

Anyway, today my opinion (not of hippies) may have changed here a bit. One of our resident developers Keith pointed me to: SomeeCards.com an e-greeting site that is funny, free, and filled with all sorts of irreverent sentiments (like the one below).  It's similar to the potty humor of tshirthell.com, only there is nothing to buy, so you can fire these off all day (if you don't have a job). Someecard greetings are simple & quick and when they arrive at your inbox, they don't require a program or any dumb downloads to run.

Have fun with it for cryin' out loud...its the holidays!

WBV

Miro-Hula-Joost - Which is best??

I was three ways hot on Joost about 2 months ago, but some new services are launching into this space and the competition is heating up.  Must recently Miro came along taking on Joost head-to-head, going as far as adding a side-by-side comparison for people to make their decision.  Worth looking at services from Miro and while you're at it, have a look at Hulu (though you have to be approved to test it - come over to our office and I'll show it to ya).

Now, if you're a geek for this kind of stuff (like me) and you want to really understand it all, Gizmodo did a comprehensive review of all 3 thats worth taking a look at it.

This may all seem a little geeky but the single most interesting about all this hoopla is that the category itself has been established from nothing, and in a matter of months. Its all new, evolving, and, I still believe this technology, once people stop thinking of PC's as PC's and TV's as TV's, and Game consoles as Game consoles...once these are all rolled into one, you start to see the future of how we will have broadcast & entertainment content delivered:

• where we want it
• when we want it
• how we want it
• only what we want
• with advertising having meaning, not force fed in 30 second slots

Time will tell who the victor will be.  Think of XM & Sirius a couple years ago.

WBV

EDAWN Launched A New Website

The Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada, and 'friends of ours' launched a new website today.  Comments on the site and "can do" reserved, we loved this particular section:

I'll say that I know most everyone on this page and this is not a flattering photo of any of these people (David excepted because he's so damn photogenic).  They may have a grievance to file with SAG.  Anyway, congrats to EDAWN on launching their new site (finally replacing the tired, chopped up version of the old one WE BUILT for them in 2000).  Much luck with the new improved web presence.

WBV