Close Enough!

posted by mark in Website Updates, Snooth

With all the yuletide cheer going around it’s still important to put our heads down from time to time and get some real work done. Over the past few days you may have seen our new similar wines module decorating the side of the detail page like tinsel on a Christmas tree. Of course this sidebar is not purely decorative, and won’t be going away after the holiday (or even after Groundhog’s Day if it’s my family).

The wines you see in the sidebar are similar to the wine you are viewing by some combination of region, winery, price, varietal — everything we know about the wine. Just another way to get acquainted with something you may not have tried. And if the wine you’re looking at is not available for purchase, maybe you could try one of the similar ones. So take a look, uncork a pair of kindred wines and let us know what you think!

I’ll Be Back

posted by mark in Website Updates, Snooth

A quick post from me today. Snooth now has the ability to save your log in info on your computer for future use. To use it, simply check the “Remember me” box when logging in.

Thanks to everyone who requested this helpful feature!

Social Netplaying

posted by mark in Snooth

It’s no shock that social networks are here to stay. I’m going to highlight the “work” part of the word network — it’s no small task to build a profile on some of the networks out there. It takes consistent effort to find and add friends as you meet them, keep up to date with what is going on with your pals, and modify your information as you evolve.

Many people complain that there are too many social networks. The model can survive the most when every person in the world has a profile on one site. Projects like Google’s Open Social are interesting in this regard, but it is still up to the developers to make sure the information populates properly, and that’s no small task. So take the growing number of social networks, add on the privacy conversation (which I am absolutely going to wave my hand at for the moment — maybe I will come back to this), and suddenly it looks like a lot of effort to find out what your friends are up to and you still haven’t seen them.

I’m not positive that it’s all worth it. Sure, I half ass a Facebook profile. I’m on Linked In. I’m just not sure how much more of it I can take, and it is precisely this social network malaise that is on the increase.

“But you work on a social networking site!”

That’s true. We’ve always looked at Snooth as not being another MySpace. Snooth is Social Networking Lite (half the calories of the leading Network). One of the things I am happiest about is Snooth’s work ethic. Past adding a few friends your profile is built by the software. We’ll of course be adding some additional functionality which will require some more basic administration but as we do so we want to make sure the goal is to connect you with more information about wine.

Snooth is a place to store and revisit your preferences. It’s a place to find new wines to try, but ultimately we want you to be out there experiencing that bottle your way. We’ll take care of the work.

Would You Like to Do More?

posted by mark in Website Updates, Snooth

I hope it isn’t news that we value what our users think about Snooth as a product. We love to get emails asking for features — it means you’re interested, it means you’re involved, and it means together we can build a better product. There are a lot of things to do with a wine on Snooth — you can bookmark it, wishlist it, rate it, cellar it, report it… Soon you’ll be able to recommend it to a friend…

And then there are some less frequently used but still valuable features for interacting with a wine. For example, let’s say you’ve tried the 2003 vintage of a wine but we only have the 2002 listed. Did you know you could easily add the 2003 vintage to the database using the details from the 2002? You’ll find this option and more in the more interactions menu, pictured below.

You can view this menu by clicking the icon. I’m sure we’ll be adding additional options into this menu eventually, and who knows, it may even evolve stylistically!