Another application of consumers calling the shots via the Internet.  Invariably, wine buyers will be turning to  channels like CellarTracker and Snooth to guide their own purchases, not to the wine critics.

"Triton Media Group, which provides programming to 4,500 radio station affiliates, has signed an agreement with Jelli to syndicate two Internet programs on FM and high-def stations. The Top 40 Jelli and the Rock Jelli programs are scheduled to go live across the U.S. early next year.

The deal surfaced after Jelli began testing the application with CBS Radio Bay Area affiliate Live 105 KITS a few months ago. The Sunday night Jelli show on Live 105 also led to an agreement with Australian-based Austereo. In November, the station will launch a Hot 30 Jelli show on stations in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. The stations will broadcast the show on FM and digital radio (DAB+), and it will be available online 24 hours daily.

The concept is the brainchild of Jelli co-founders Michael Dougherty and Jateen Parekh. The two set out to reinvent radio by giving terrestrial broadcast stations the ability to crowdsource music, target advertising and provide an outlet for promotions and games.

The Internet application provides terrestrial radio stations with a Google-like feel and experience. Run from a server sitting alongside the radio station's digital programming equipment in the broadcast studio, an Internet application allows listeners to take control of the music sent over the airwaves. The server plugs into the audio-out pin to transmit through the broadcast tower and the Internet.

Jelli's Internet interface provides a list of songs. The music listeners vote on the songs they want to hear. Votes move songs up or down the chart. Clicking on the "Rocks" or the "Sucks" meter keeps or removes songs from playing on the air. "It usually takes a little more than half the audience to blow up a song and take it off the air by hitting the 'Sucks' button," Dougherty says. "It usually happens about once per show." When the crowd blows up a song, the next track moves up the queue and into the play box..."

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=115660

Steve Heimoff ended his recent blog essay Are you Living Social with the question: “Can any social media relationship be as good as an old-fashioned relationship in which the participants actually meet in the real world, hang out together, eat and drink and laugh and talk with and see each other?” As good as? No, of course not. But since winery principals can’t do this personal meet and greet with the reach of social media, SM is a kind of hamburger helper, allowing the winery to use a new technology to extend the sort of connections that heretofore could only be conducted in the flesh. Which is pretty much what Steve wrote in the body of his post.

Yes, in the good old days, there were newsletters and other forms of communication, some very clever (Bonny Doon's comes to mind), which humanized and personalized the principal. But there was no real interaction.

If a winery is truly "living social" I suspect the vintner has to take the lead and not delegate, like Steve Mirassou and Jason Haas. Larger companies will have trouble, therefore, engaging at this level. SM can really only be effective at a smaller scale.

Take one example of Web 2.0 in operation: wine.woot.com. Two long time winemakers, Peter Wellington (”Sonoma Bouliste” in the comment exchanges) and Scott Harvey (”ScottHarveyWines”), have created significant communities of wine consumers who have formed bonds with them and with each other. By placing their blogs in this 3rd party channel they have immeasurably expanded their contact (and no doubt customer) base. They are contributing to consumer education and appreciation that they couldn’t do any other way, in large part because they take the time to have an online conversation.  Alas, they seemed to have stopped blogging on this third party site.

Very few blogs have this capacity.  One notable exception is PinotBlogger which has a broad readership, in part because Josh Hermsmeyer writes so well, and because it's interesting for the reader to be looking over his shoulder while he tries to get his winery off the ground.  But four years later, still no vino.