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When choosing a site for this review, I wanted to avoid the shopping sites that I am familiar with. I have been buying off eBay since high school. I figured it was time to find something else. So I chose a site that hovers around a subject that is new to me: wine.com

In a similar format to Amazon, wine.com sells numerous kinds of wine as well as gift baskets that feature cheeses and wine. However, Amazon originally sold books and moved on to just about everything, probably even wine, but wine.com does a good job of exclusively selling and distributing numerous types of wine.

The saying goes, “you only have one chance to make a first impression.” What do you see when you visit wine.com? Everything you need to.

There is nothing overly flashy about the site and it is broken up into several easy to read sections. At the top of the page, three very important customer options are easily accessible. The cart, the customer’s account information and customer care.
The cart is where a customer can keep track of what they are purchasing. It provides information on shipping charges and options. The “My Account” section allows registered members to be updated on their wine interests and review past purchases.

If you were ever worried about purchasing wine on the Internet, the “Customer Care” page lets the worrisome buyer relax. The page is broken down into nine links including an “About Us” section that features a history, overview and career opportunities at wine.com. It has customer testimonials which are very important these days, especially when buying off the Internet. It has security information, a page for people new to wine, list of services and a contact page.
The contact page has everything people need to know. It has phone numbers, e-mails and addresses of wine.com. The buyer can buy comfortably knowing that the offices of wine.com are at 114 Sansome Street in San Francisco and not a suspicious PO Box.

Overall the site moves the customer through easily and swiftly. Two clicks and you’re at the “contact us” page, one click and you’re in the wine shop, it’s very easy to navigate and it has definitely taken pointers from other e-commerce sites in the user-friendly department.

As I mentioned earlier, the entire site is easy to read. It has conservative colors and there is nothing flashy about it. It’s simple and straight forward. This is good for their target market which I would assume would be older customers, people who might not want a whole lot of hoopla when buying their wine off the Internet.
An interesting feature is the sidebar on the left hand side of the main page and the wine shop page.
It has links to top rated wines, top selling wines and recommendations from people at wine.com. On the wine shop page, wines are separated by region. You can look at wines from all over the world including California, Greece, South America and Israel.
Customers can also look at types of wine (red, white, bubbly etc…), wines in different price ranges (from $25 and below to $75 and above) or even browse specific wineries.
I browsed through a few pages and there are hundreds of different wines to choose from. It offers everything you need to know when buying your favorite wines.

The Final Test:

To explain the convenience of wine.com, I will run you through the purchasing process from start to finish. I will browse through some of the wines, read the write-ups each one gets and finally make a choice, and since I will not be actually buying the wine I figure I can be a high roller.

So I started off searching the “$75 and above” wines and the first ones that come up were from Tuscany, Italy and were $86. I kept looking and after perusing through the many choices, I finally picked a Ch L’Evangile 2001 Pormerol from Pomerol, Bordeaux. It was $139 and according to the page, Wine Spectator magazine says this about the wine:

“Beautiful aromas of chocolate, blackberry and light cappuccino follow through to a medium- to full-bodied palate, with fine tannins and a long finish. Delicious already but will be much better in a few years."

At the bottom of the wine’s page, there are related links to information about Bordeaux wines and Pomerol. Unfortunately there are no customer reviews for this product, but these are the types of things you have to put up with when you are a high rolling wine connoisseur like me.
On the right side of the page, there are more recommendations that a Ch L’Evangile fan might like.
So I was satisfied with my purchase and added it to my cart. It then asked me what state they will be shipping my bottle to and soon I found out that I would not be able to get my L’Evangile wine (even if I had an extra $140)…and here’s why:

· Due to varying state laws, wine cannot be shipped to every state. See map at right.
· While our wine selection is extensive, all wines we carry may not be available in every state.

So, overall the site itself is nearly flawless, but you can’t expect them to get around state laws. I’d recommend this site to anyone who lives in the red states.

The Internet is in the middle of strange times.

Blogs and podcasts seem to be the rising stars in the Internet's ever-evolving arsenal, but no one is for sure and it seems only a few outlets are willing to put their stock on the line for these features.
Saul Hansell, in his article "Yahoo Says It Is Backing Away From TV-Style Web Shows," says that Yahoo had previously considered producing original content for online users to enjoy. For unclear reasons, it changed its mind.
He lists a few possible political reasons, like the head office men and creative minds weren't getting along. But Yahoo officials said that just wasn't true.
They also say that the whole idea of original content and TV-Style Web shows is not completely out of the equation. They know that the public isn't ready to watch shows on their computers just yet. It's one thing to enjoy Desperate Housewives on your couch in your living room and it's another to sit at your desk watching it on a grainy 15-inch screen.
Most importantly, the article mentions how Yahoo want to get a piece of what's hot.

What's hot these days? You guessed it...The myspace.com phenomenon. It is a Web site where millions of people, in this case mostly college-aged students, flock to put their own information on the net and to read others. How perfect is this for media outlets? They sit back and let their users do the work and they reap the ad revenues.

Yahoo naturally wants in on this and they know that TV-Style Web shows can wait until the myspace fad is over. Hopefully by that time people will be surfing the net on comfortable couches in their living rooms, with decent speakers and nicer screens.

When we all get that way, count me in!

In his article "Podcasters and Rights-Free Tunes," James Careless talks about how Internet podcast programs are using independent music on their shows instead of shelling out cash for unclear rights to licensed music. Make sense?

The record industry is a great example of a huge multi-million dollar industry crumbling every time new technology comes out. Think back to just six or seven years ago when Napster kept the music industry up all night. They dropped law suits on everyone from college kids to children to senior citizens. They were ruthless and many music lovers had no problem turning their back on such a greedy and souless business.

When Napster hit the scene, it put every musical artist on equal grounds. Heck, I put my own high school band on Napster and it got downloaded twice! Naturally, the money-makers hated this idea and the garage and basement bands loved it. The lawsuits came and cleaned people out. They somehow figured a hard drive full of songs-- now 99-cents -- means the owner should fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars that they don't have. Finally, record sales slipped. If you're making your customers broke, they can't buy your product.

So jump ahead to 2006. Instead of printing out clear rights for podcasters to play music, the industry is leaving the rules vague which in turn makes podcasters unsure of purchasing the rights to the music. The industry is once again shunning its consumers and blindly playing God. They must think the podcast fad will be over soon. I doubt they spend time to find out anything about who listens to their music. If they did, they would see thousands of college students strutting through college campuses listening to Ipods.

They finally handled the mp3 fiasco four years late and they should now be getting a jump on the podcast fiasco!

Pod pioneer and ex-MTV VJ Adam Curry said "there is a willingness among podcasters to pay for licenses...Meanwhile people are still getting sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for sharing music online, which doesn't make people feel very confident about paying for unclear rights."

And rightfully so. The neatest feature about the old Napster was the ability to download unlicensed music. Concert bootlegs, TV appearances and unsigned bands were readily available at high speeds. These are things people want. The record industry has proven to the masses that they have no clue. If they were smart they'd be the ones behind these new products and Internet programs, but they are not. They are way behind and in the end it makes them look like a bunch of sue-happy, whining babies...And in the end it will always hurt the music listeners.

"blah...blah...blah"

That is what many within the sports media sound like these days. Recently a book was released that said Barry Bonds took massive amounts of steroids from the late-90s to 2002. Not so ironically, in that time period (2001) he hit more home runs in a season than any other player, beating two other juiced-up hitters (Mark McGuire & Sammy Sosa). He had 73 homers that seasom. Three more than McGuire and nine more than Sosa, who both achieved their totals in 1998.

Nothing has been proven but if you ask me, Bonds is as guilty as Popeye the Sailorman - if spinach were steroids, of course. Similarly to McGuire and Sosa, Bonds miraculously bulked up just before breaking the record. Break out your baseball cards from the 80s and notice how much smaller these players were.

Bonds was always a great player and some sports writers think he could be in the Hall of Fame just for his early career stats. Perhaps, but I can't help but think that he will always be branded a cheater. He should be stripped of the "Home Run Crown" and all the homers he hit during the years he was juiced up should be docked from his stats. Roger Maris is still the home run king in my book (61 in 1961).

It's a little coincidental that these alleged juiced players are breaking records after many years in the league. The closest McGuire got to the record before 1996 was in 1987 when he hit 49 homers. Sosa is not even in the list of TOP 50 (pre-96).

I have no sympathy for cheaters, especially at this level. Whose forking over $200 to bring their family to a ball game? Who is making the millions for playing a game? It's ridiculous.

It's hilarious when the sports writers point fingers at other players. "Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle were alcoholics," they say. "Ty Cobb was a cheater too." Is that an excuse for Bonds to get all the glory he doesn't deserve? I'd imagine that alcohol makes you play worse... Maybe Ruth would have had 74 homers if he had just put down the bottle once in a while.


There is no excuse for steroid use. Allen Iverson is not allowed to use stilts, Wayne Gretzky did not shoot into a bigger net and no one's right field wall should be closer just because they stick a need into their behind.

Bonds should be ashamed of himself and banned from the game of baseball, along with Sosa and McGuire. If they are in the Hall of Fame and are allowed to keep their home run records, millions of young baseball players will see that it's OK to cheat. They will see that even if you get caught, they'll let it slide because you helped "save baseball" with your home run race. It's crazy!

The most important thing to note, and this is a good thing, is that individual cheating may win you awards but it will not win you a World Series.

Sosa and Bonds = Ringless.
McGuire = Ringless after being juiced up

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Facts from Factmonster.com & The Major League Baseball Web Site

Isn't it weird that people are blaming bad promotion on the Winter Olympic poor ratings?
ESPN goon Steven A. Smith said that they did a horrible job promoting the events and they should be ashamed. He also said that he is not watching because they did not give him enough reason to (something along those lines).
Is that what it's come down to? Do we NEED commercials and successful ad campaigns for us to watch anything? I guess the spirit of the Olympics, the competition and sportsmanship is not enough anymore. We need a reason to watch.
So they did their best. They said Michelle Kwan, Bode Miller and Sasha Cohen will save the world. They branded them American heroes before they even stepped foot in a skate or ski boot. What came of that? Out of three only Cohen came away with a medal, a silver.
I am not trying to take away anything from the athletes themselves. They ARE the best of the best, but with the pressure of ad campaigns on their shoulders it might make it hard to do a triple lutz.
So when it was inevitable that the Olympics on TV was a bust, getting pounded by American Idol in ratings and lacking any interest by Americans, the media went to what works best...Controversy.
There was little feud between the speed skating team but you would have thought another civil war was coming, and that didn't even work.

How sad is it that a global tradition that pits the world's top athletes against each other in peace and sportsmanship needs to be served to us on a silver platter? How sad is it that we are bombarded with prematurely heralded athletic gods or news about meaningles bickering within U.S. team? It's too bad.

It looks like things getting heated again in the Internet world. Six years after America Online's Instant Messenger and ICQ were the all the rave, Jessi Hempel and Tom Lowry say that Web sites are setting their sites on 18-25 year olds, a "highly coveted but elusive demographic."
Billions of dollars are being spent for ownership of the next big Internet innovation. Risking that any site can be a short lived fad is a chance that media moguls are willing to take. But how long can this hold up?
Before Instant Messenger long lost high school friends stayed that way. Once AIM hit it big in the late 90s, people could contact their fellow alums and catch up in an consequence free, faceless forum. Could these "friendly" relationships become even more unattached? Sure, get rid of the contact all together and allow people to get updates on their friends without the friends even knowing about it.
It is safe to assume that sooner or later this faceless and detached way of communication will fade out.
Why is the 18-25 demographic so "coveted?" Because you can make a pot of popcorn in more time than their attention spans. It's hot now, but it won't last...In a way it almost can't.
Is it worth it for media companies to fork over billions to own these sites. Yes, because the myspace.com fad has a good chance of lasting a few more years, and in cyber space, that's a lifetime. By measuring dropping traffic, maybe they can bail before these sites hit rock bottom.
Remember AOL chat rooms? mIRC? bbs's? ICQ? ... Remember myspace?

It fits.

In David Kiley’s article about the up and coming carspace.com Web site, he uncovers what will surely be a tidal wave of similar Web sites in the coming months.
In the same way the message boards and AOL chat rooms took off, topic sites like carspace.com will surely take their place as a hub for enthusiasts to share just about everything about their interests and hobbies.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see this phenomenon coming. The big car companies like Honda and GM have already jumped on it and will advertise on the site.
Kiley writes that “advertisers like the way social networking can target people by passion rather than age.”
Why wouldn’t they? They are channeling all their ads directly to people who are some way interested in their product. Whether it is baseball card traders, online dating or left handed squash players from Towanda, this type of forum makes all their needs available. Advertisers would be fools not to use these topic Web sites to spread their word.
The carspace.com idea can’t go wrong. Americans love cars and the proof is in the numbers. Car sites are often advertised on TV and a Web site has to get a lot of traffic before they get ads on TV.
Nine million visitors every month visit Edmunds.com, Kileys says and 2 million visit Insideline.com, both automobile Web sites. He said that carspace.com will likely skyrocket by these two sites.
Why? It’s simple.
The idea is stemmed from myspace.com. A system that allows people to share music, photos and other forms of Internet files.
The site is a hit among college students, so the most common sense step would be to make sites that attract special niches and hobbyists.
What will be next? Hoopspace.com for basketball fans, ukulelespace.com for avid ukulele players or maybe lunchboxspace.com for collectors of classic metal lunch boxes from the 50s.
It’s not only what may be in the near future, it is what should be in the near future. It makes sense.