Twitter is changing our community interactions in ways that we are just starting to realize. At SXSW parties were formed within an hour, simply because Scott Beale or other people Twittered about them.
We’ve seen a marriage proposal in the last week. Earthquakes reported before CNN does (just tonight there was an earthquake in Tokyo that was being discussed on Twitter). A camera guy in the White House press pool talking with us about what’s going on around the world. And much more.
Last night it came together when a bunch of people who are loosely connected planned, and implemented a wine party in less than 30 hours.
It all started on Friday afternoon. I joined a few guys in Santa Rosa for a wine-tasting weekend: Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, Tim Ferriss, author of “The Four Hour Workweek,” which is near the top of the New York Times best-seller list right now, and Gary Vaynerchuk, owner of a wine store in New Jersey (does $50 million a year in sales) and famous wine videoblogger. Twitter addresses: @kevinrose. @timferriss. @scobleizer. @garyvee.
Anyway, the weekend started out at DeLoach Winery in Santa Rosa, but we had no idea what was waiting for us. DeLoach President and owner, Jean Charles Boisset, served us lunch, launched a new wine, and was showing us around their newly-renovated wine house where they were planning to host events. Here’s part I of the tour that we got. Here’s part II of the tour we got. In part III, Jean shows us some new bottles he’s testing, talks about his marketing philosophy (you might be shocked to learn what “OFS”, which is one of his wine’s names, stands for).
At the time we got these tours this party did not exist. That was Friday afternoon at about 4 p.m. After we filmed those videos, Jean handed the keys to Gary and said “I left 24 cases of wine for you to share with your friends.”
Now, what’s your impulse? I looked at Kevin and Gary and we all three knew we were thinking the same thing: Twitter it! So, we asked Jean “are you sure you want us to invite a few hundred people over here?” He said yes. We asked again, and once more just to be sure. He even said he’d like to host future events for the tech industry. I remember thinking to myself that either Jean was incredibly brave, or maybe he was just not aware of what could happen in today’s Twitter world.
Anyway, Gary had originally planned to have a quiet dinner on Saturday night but now those plans were turned upside down. We thought about just inviting our favorite friends. Nah, that wouldn’t be cool. Too exclusive. So, we just Twittered it and invited everyone to come.
It turned out to be a great party. TeelaJBrown even drove from Los Angeles. Scott Beale got some great photos with his new Ricoh digital camera. I shot two videos of the party itself. BusinessWeek’s Sarah Lacy was there with her husband. So was Dave Morin, head of Facebook’s application platform. Oh, and a whole contingent of French Entrepreneurs who’ll be touring companies in SF and Silicon Valley. They LOVED Gary’s show.
Anyway, if you only watch one video from the party, catch this one of a filming of Gary’s show. Keep in mind this is at about midnight after Gary’s been tasting wine and hanging out with people all day long. The guy is just incredible.
Before I go on more about the party, wanted to thank the other wineries we visited, in addition to DeLoach, which is known for its Pinots.
Shane Winery. Video. A small microbrewery. I found this one interesting because of the wine maker’s innovative approach. And I love small things. He only makes a couple hundred cases a year.
Forth Winery. You’d never find this on your own. But what a beautiful setting, and even nicer people who made us one of the best meals I’ve ever had. That’s why I shot a ton of video here. Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV.
St. Francis. Video. Known for having some of the oldest vines in Sonoma and is famous for its Merlots. Meet the CEO and the winemaker.
Great business discussion between Gary and Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, with Jean of DeLoach.
Anyway, hope to do more of these kinds of events. What was great about this one is that it quickly became an experience, rather than just another boring conference. The real trick is: how do you limit them to about 200 people? That seems to be the perfect size. Bigger than that and they become impersonal affairs. Smaller and they are just dinner parties. I have a feeling that if Gary starts doing events he’ll have thousands of people at them pretty quickly.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who came on such short notice. Thanks again to the DeLoach winery.
Scobleizer 
Its amazing how Twitter can do this, but its still a social networking tool! Great job on putting the party together!
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Its amazing how Twitter can do this, but its still a social networking tool! Great job on putting the party together!
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Gary rocks! How can you not want to hang with such a positive crowd. He did this at SXSW also and turn the Marriott lobby into a 200 person party within 30 minutes. Twitter has changed our lives forever.
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Gary rocks! How can you not want to hang with such a positive crowd. He did this at SXSW also and turn the Marriott lobby into a 200 person party within 30 minutes. Twitter has changed our lives forever.
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@alexdesigns Gary is incredible. He did his show at midnight after drinking wine all day with us and keeping us entertained every single minute of the day. I’m totally in awe. When you meet someone special, you know it and it just sticks out.
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@alexdesigns Gary is incredible. He did his show at midnight after drinking wine all day with us and keeping us entertained every single minute of the day. I’m totally in awe. When you meet someone special, you know it and it just sticks out.
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This is great and shows the potential of Twitter to move beyond other social networking tools. I came across this article (http://tiny.cc/BFIqm) while working on a blog post about social networking in recruitment. As Rogers described Robin Dunbar’s findings about how language evolves – the desire and need to communicate with increasingly larger numbers of individuals – from picking and grooming to language and, well, now to social networks…I couldn’t help but think about the potential of Twitter. Yes, I’m a confessed twitterholic – and love it!
btw – I saw your tweets and observed the event unfolding – would have gone but too far from Portland. But even as an observer you could feel the energy building.
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This is great and shows the potential of Twitter to move beyond other social networking tools. I came across this article (http://tiny.cc/BFIqm) while working on a blog post about social networking in recruitment. As Rogers described Robin Dunbar’s findings about how language evolves – the desire and need to communicate with increasingly larger numbers of individuals – from picking and grooming to language and, well, now to social networks…I couldn’t help but think about the potential of Twitter. Yes, I’m a confessed twitterholic – and love it!
btw – I saw your tweets and observed the event unfolding – would have gone but too far from Portland. But even as an observer you could feel the energy building.
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I think I have a means to limit this kind of event to the number of people you can more or less handle: time. You must know how flexible the twittering crowd about you more or less if, and adapt the time of messaging accordingly. If you announce such an event a day in advance many people can shift their schedules and make that drive, if you announce it an hour in advance, only people who live closer will be able to come and many people wont be able to come at all, because they already are at a dinner party with someone else. Of course this kills some of the diversity.
If this goes to far out of hand, twitter will have succumbed because of it’s own success.
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I think I have a means to limit this kind of event to the number of people you can more or less handle: time. You must know how flexible the twittering crowd about you more or less if, and adapt the time of messaging accordingly. If you announce such an event a day in advance many people can shift their schedules and make that drive, if you announce it an hour in advance, only people who live closer will be able to come and many people wont be able to come at all, because they already are at a dinner party with someone else. Of course this kills some of the diversity.
If this goes to far out of hand, twitter will have succumbed because of it’s own success.
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Great stuff, I loved your qik videos, especially the midnight WLTV show. And many thanks for pointing the way to Gary’s stuff, that guy definitely got the gift(s).
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Great stuff, I loved your qik videos, especially the midnight WLTV show. And many thanks for pointing the way to Gary’s stuff, that guy definitely got the gift(s).
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Loved the behind the scenes taping of WineLibraryTV. Thanks for sharing that.
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Loved the behind the scenes taping of WineLibraryTV. Thanks for sharing that.
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Talk about the rock stars of web 2.0
What a great “inside baseball” discussion. Absolutely great stuff.
One oversite, Kevin “the dark hacker” Rose had launched Digg.com before he left The Screen Savers (or was it “Attack of the Show” at that point?). He had promoted it as a “feature site” by a “friend of his”. He leveraged his position as host of the show (which he took over after Leo & Patrick left) to help build the digg community. Great move by him and of course a great site.
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Talk about the rock stars of web 2.0
What a great “inside baseball” discussion. Absolutely great stuff.
One oversite, Kevin “the dark hacker” Rose had launched Digg.com before he left The Screen Savers (or was it “Attack of the Show” at that point?). He had promoted it as a “feature site” by a “friend of his”. He leveraged his position as host of the show (which he took over after Leo & Patrick left) to help build the digg community. Great move by him and of course a great site.
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Stop the world…
A party made possible by CELL PHONES, by MASS SMS, by EMAIL, by regular IM, by MESSAGE BOARD/CRAIGSLIST, by FLYER, by UPCOMING, or a house-crash by MYSPACE.
Geesus, all so much navel-gazing.
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Stop the world…
A party made possible by CELL PHONES, by MASS SMS, by EMAIL, by regular IM, by MESSAGE BOARD/CRAIGSLIST, by FLYER, by UPCOMING, or a house-crash by MYSPACE.
Geesus, all so much navel-gazing.
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Robert . . . great to meet you Saturday! It was amazing to have all of you guys around the table talking about what you’re up to and what’s coming next in your world. What an education! When can we do it again?
I’ve got Tim’s book on the way, guess I’d better get a Twitter account going now too, eh?
Cheers!
Lia
http://www.swirlingnotions.com
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Robert . . . great to meet you Saturday! It was amazing to have all of you guys around the table talking about what you’re up to and what’s coming next in your world. What an education! When can we do it again?
I’ve got Tim’s book on the way, guess I’d better get a Twitter account going now too, eh?
Cheers!
Lia
http://www.swirlingnotions.com
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I can’t believe I didn’t found about this until after the fact! I live in Santa Rosa and I would have *LOVED* to come. Note to self: follow Scoble on twitter. Doh!
Yours truly,
@patgannon
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I can’t believe I didn’t found about this until after the fact! I live in Santa Rosa and I would have *LOVED* to come. Note to self: follow Scoble on twitter. Doh!
Yours truly,
@patgannon
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