Posts from — June 2008
Insomnia and pimping my mac
June 30, 2008
Tonight I laid in bed for about an hour before I realized there was no way I was sleeping a wink. Tonight was not my night for sleep I guess. However, it is now 2:21 am and I have seriously discovered some of the coolest things for my mac book that will definitely add to my productivity in the near future.
Safari 3.1 Opening new links in a new tab and NOT a new window automatically
I have been using Mozilla Firefox religiously since I first heard of it a few years back. The Tab feature is glorious. In one web browser window I could tab it up with everything from email, news, and anything else I was working on. I now use a mac and after attempting all browsers from Opera, Camino, Shiira, Seamonkey, and good ol’ fashion Firefox for Mac, I ultimately liked Safari the most….but when you click a new link it always opens up a new window. Of course you can command click it every time but come on! And to no avail in the prefs Apple apparently hasn’t had 12 million requests yet for this feature because you can’t adjust this…they must only be at 9 million so far.
After reading up on some forums I found this magical piece of code that makes my life sweet.
Open source mac software for just about anything…its free and legal and it kicks ass!
I love new features and fucntionality and I like Free. Once more, I like if the free things kick ass. Here is an awesome site for really making your Mac killer. From word processors, podcasting, web browsers, and financial software, this site has a bit of everything.
Pandora as an application, not a browser window…..so you don’t accidentally close it like I do every ten seconds!
Pandora.com totally rocks, great music streams, solid variety, and commercial free besides visual ads. However, I am a clumsy web surfer and sometimes my speed at which I modify my tabs or windows exceeds my ability to preserve my current Pandora song. I find myself always closing the tab mid song and thats a bummer! Well after a google search I found that Pandora now offers a desktop software (in beta) to make it run as a windows program or Mac application. This is totally rocking. Go to Pandora and pick it up!
Cheers,
Lloyd
June 30, 2008 2 Comments
Drinking…Does the body good (if you follow this workout routine while bar hopping.)
June 19, 2008
I came across some very insightful workout videos this morning. It’s all about multi-tasking right?
Don’t forget the late night toilet bowl heaves!
Lloyd Benedict
June 19, 2008 2 Comments
Walla Walla Wine Marketing Summit Recap June 16th, 2008
I was given about an hour and fifteen minutes to speak about ways wineries can open new channels within the direct sales model. My goal was to introduce new technologies that may be easily implemented, be easily managed and are essentially FREE! Here were the higlights that I hope people took away from the presentation.
- Facebook–Mark Zuckerburg has a site with over 500 different wine groups and nearly 500,000 users that are apart of those groups, start your FREE profile and build your community and let Millennials follow your winery.
- Add This–a free html button that allows the world to share your wine with their entire community.
- Go to addthis.com for the FREE button like this one!
- Allow people to live your passion with you…and let their passion for you drive sales. Take videos, and write blogs frequently sharing your passion and the winemaking/vineyard process. Make sure your customers know you as well as possible. Check out Adopt A Grape at adoptagrape.org for inspiration. FREE upload service called Viddler.com, allows you to plug videos easily into your blog or site.
- Gary Vaynerchuk–Be sure to send him an email, garyv@winelibrary.com. He will respond.
- Google Analytics–Google has released a totally free web analytics program that is very easy to use. Just plug in the code and find out who, when, and where from your visitors to your site are coming from. You can’t learn what’s working from above with out the analytics piece. Go to Google.com/analytics
June 17, 2008 No Comments
Over 2,000 domestic wines now available at AmericanWinery.com.
What a fantastic Thursday. Today AmericanWinery.com reached a new milestone that further establishes AW as the premier location to browse, search, and purchase premium wines shipped directly from the source. Since we began the marketplace in November 2007, nearly 8 months ago, American Winery has paved new territory and redefined what is possible in the domestic wine scene. 2,000 offerings, wines that range from extrememly rare and hard to find, to boutique estates, to good value offerings–AmericanWinery.com is an extremely efficient site that helps winemakers make more cash for their wine while ensuring buyers get access to all the good stuff you can’t find on the grocery shelves–its all about access, I will write more on that later…
So how exactly did AW build a base of over 350 wineries, 2000 wines, in the marketplace and nearly 1300 for the profile service in just over one year? The anwer is simple. We are a value inspired company, driven by results. The fact we don’t put the winery in the hole when they begin our service is not a coincidence. I firmly believe that making wine in the US is one of the most difficult pursuits, requiring levels of determination and hardships that go beyond just “running a business.” In a industry driven by a tryranny of middlemen that squeeze pipelines and funnel millions to keep their unwarranted strangle holds on the American winemaker, Wineries are stretched dry. When it comes to the web and a winery’s opportunity to sell wine direct over the web, I felt that there had to be a better way.
Marketplaces and the “power in numbers” shopping mall approach are tested and proven methods of bringing buyers and sellers together to drive commerce. Think Amazon, think Ebay, and think your local malls that house a JC Penny, Sears, Macy’s and Bloomingdales. Textbook competitors but they know when they sit in the same mall people come to this place and spend money on everyone. This is the same mentality I maintained when building AmericanWinery.com. Give Wineries a place to express their brand, present their products, and give buyers a consolidated, streamlined, beautiful and guaranteed shopping experience.
Goals. 2000 wines is great and all, but if there are no buyers, there is no value. I am thrilled to see the % of wineries making sales on AW going up. As of the date of this blog post, every month 20% more of AW wineries receive orders that would not have existed otherwise. However this is just the itty bitty tip of the iceberg for this group. Unique views to AW are growing and AW is averaging 15,000 uniques a month with a goal of averages between 35 and 50 thousand within six months. AmericanWinery.com and the dedicated group behind it are fired up and on the path of establishing the greatest American wine based site out there! Watch out!
Cheers,
Lloyd Benedict
Founder | Ceo
AmericanWinery.com
June 12, 2008 No Comments
