6. What is blog spam and why is it a problem?

Stormhoek Vineyards is a small winery in South Africa (stormhoek.com). Annual sales in 2005 were only $3 million, but with Web 2.0 technologies, sales grew to $10 million in 2007 and were projected to reach $30 million in 2010. The company devised a marketing campaign called “100 Geek Dinners in 100 Days.” Each dinner was to be hosted by one person and used for wine tasting by several dozen guests in the United Kingdom and the United States. How can you get 100 people to host a wine tasting and how do you find 40 to 60 guests for each event? The answer: Web 2.0 technologies.
The company’s plan consisted of the following:
• Blogging. The CEO of Orbital Wines, Stormhoek’s parent company, in collaboration with a well-know blogger, Hugh Macleod, wrote dozens of blog entries about the events, soliciting volunteer hosts, including bloggers (stormhoek.com/
blog) and wine enthusiasts.
• Wiki. Each volunteer was provided with contact and location information on a wiki. The wiki technology was mainly used for customer relations management (CRM). The wiki included winerelated cartoons and other entertainment and advertising.
• Podcasts. Web-content feed enabled by an RSS was used to push information to participants’ inboxes. Information included wine news, wine analyses, and descriptions of the 100 parties.
• Video and photo links. The corporate blog supported video links. Bloggers could cut and paste embedded links to YouTube videos directly into an entry. The company also posted videos on YouTube (youtube.com/stormhoekwines) and pictures at flickr.comflickr.com/search/?w=all&q=stormhoek&m=text.
• Shopping. The blog site acted as a portal to Stormhoek and included support for order placement and shopping carts for promotional “swag,” such as posters and T-shirts.
• Mashups. An interactive map was integrated into the wiki using mashup software. This allowed dinner hosts to display a map of the location of the event. Also, guests could click an event on the map to make a reservation, get a reservation confirmation, send a query to the host, and receive photos of the house and the hosts. The company’s wiki also had a link to host-blogger’s home page.
• Social networks. The company has a page at Facebook with news, a discussion group, information, photos, videos, and a dedicated group.