Another Mobile Search Engine « My Wine Education

Another Mobile Search Engine

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I try to stay on top of the latest wine technology. A trend I’ve noticed lately is the ability to go to your mobile, while in a wine store, and check on wine prices. This is a great idea but thus far, clumsy in execution. There is WineZap, which allows you to text the wine information and recieve local pricing in return. However, I found the return text/email to be slow (at times it took over 24 hours, and by that time I’m out of the wine shop) and their database to be small, but growing.

Similar in idea, we now have Global Wine Stocks. Today they announced a mobile version of their online wine search service. I haven’t yet played with the mobile version, but I did try my hand at the full-size, online version.

I searched for two different Bordeauxs in my cellar, and it turned up nothing in either Ohio or Kentucky. Since I purchased these in Ohio and Kentucky, that didn’t quite work for me. Giving up, I simply typed in Yellow Tail and searched for merchants in either state. It turned up one merchant in Ohio and no merchants in Kentucky. Ohio is a big state. The merchant was several hundred miles away from me.

I believe that WineZap’s database is directly related to the WineZap community, but I’m unfamiliar with how Global Wine Stock completes their information. I suspect they sell the opportunity to be listed in their search engine to wine merchants, but I’m not positive.

I love the idea of these mobile wine services. I think they’re on the
right track. However, I also believe they need to fatten their
databases before going live in order to attract, and retain, users. But you’ve got to start somewhere, right?