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cruvee's groovy Print
Written by Nikitas Magel   

NM: It sounding like you're harnessing the technology to turn what might otherwise be noise, so to speak, into music.  You're assembling wine information from what would otherwise be a disjoined collection of online sources, and then channeling it in a way that resonates with individual users.

EC: Exactly!  The vast amounts of real-time information is really difficult to search.  And it's never perfectly correlated to keywords that you might put into Google or whatever [other search engine].  So, you don't have the opportunity to bring it around in one location where someone can actually, as you said, remove the noise from around it and get a key focus on specific information and what's important around that.  We give you a more focused look at the wine information that's available, as opposed to leaving the user not knowing where to start.  With Cruvee, you don't have to start anywhere in particular, because based on where you begin to browse or searching [for wine information] throughout the site, you have the opportunity to learn from other members who are posting information you're interested in, as well as from the outside sources, news, and blog posts — all based on the search term you plug in.

The other nice thing is that, based on your experience level when you sign up, we can customize [the language]: cryptic terms can be switched out, like from 'vintage' to 'year' or from 'varietal' to 'grape.'  Then as the user becomes a little more experienced they can change their settings to start seeing words that are more the standard in terminology.  Now, granted, we can't be all things to all people.  However, we wanted to make Cruvee very approachable and easy, so it would be comfortable to the beginner but at the same time — because [the site] has the power behind it — more experienced wine drinkers can also use it.

NM: Speaking of using it, let's take a closer look at the actual Cruvee website.  Can you walk me through each of the general features and how they all fit into the big picture?

EC: [Once you're logged in, you'll see that] on the top side of navigation is the My Cruvee page, which is your world of wine and everything that's interesting to you [based on the information you've provided when you set up your profile].  Inside that area, you have your friends, plus different wine news and information; you also have your cellar management program, as well as the wine lifestyle type of feature, where we aggregate all the information and tell you the different events that are happening in your location.  Next is Browse Cruvee page, which gives you the opportunity to search our database of wine information.  Now, whenever you do any kind of search or browsing, we also put other types of [context relevant] information in front of you.  Plus, you have the opportunity to drill down [more deeply] to anything you want to see, based on the specific wines, varietal, or region you're looking at.

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Next is the Wines page, where there are two sections.  [On the bottom left] is Wines You May Be Interested In, where we implement our proprietary technology to sum up a profile about your wine interests, and take the opportunity to introduce some new wines that may be of interest to you.  [To the right of that] is Popular Wines, which is really based on other users feedback and applies that to your personal profile, to best match some wines that might be interesting to you.  On the same note, the Wineries page is very similar, only it applies to wineries that might be of interest.  It also features wineries that are very active in the [Cruvee] community, through blogging or starting [online] discussions — activities that make their rankings go higher and higher on the list of popular wineries, giving them the opportunity to be showcased within the site.  So, while users may not otherwise find out about a small winery, if those wineries are active [on the site], users will start learning about them.  On both the Wines and Wineries pages, there's a section called Related News, where we're aggregating content from all the wine blogs and other wine-related areas on the web.  Again, it's not just random bits of news; the information is related [to the wines or wineries listed in on the page].  So, basically, we give this focused view of wines, wineries, and wine-related information that's available [and targeted] to you, the user.

The Groups page gives the opportunity for people to get together, be social, and learn about what's fun and interesting to them [in the world of wine]; they can talk and have discussions inside these groups, they can also send out messages.  We're going to expand that page at some point in time to include different types of event-handling and stuff like that.  So, it's in its beginning phase, but it builds the community.  And then finally, the Forums page is the general place where anything anybody is talking about — whether they start a blog post on their Cruvee page or a discussion about a wine or winery — is dumped into there, so a user can actually see that type of information [easily & centrally] and respond accordingly.  On the same note, those types of posts and discussions also get displayed on a user's activities screen on their My Cruvee page, if it's something that's important to them.  It brings a focused view of information, whether it's within Cruvee or outside Cruvee, as well as wines and such that would relate to them.



 

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