Here is the description of the book from the website:

“The world of business is coming full circle. The rise of the Internet and the empowerment of the common consumer has created a fundamental shift in how businesses are expected to behave. To take advantage of this opportunity, businesses will need to look backwards and scale the caring their grandparents’ businesses exhibited towards their customers or watch their competition pass them by.”

I think everyone can agree that modern day businesses don’t feel nearly as warm and cozy as the businesses of yesteryear. If anyone can instruct today’s businesses on how to use the social web to “scale caring” – Gary is the man to do it.

This episode was a long time coming. Gary and I had tried to align our schedules for a pretty long time but never were able to make it work. I’m glad that we finally did. The episode has a few hundred comments over on the show’s blog and I’m happy that I’ve been able to respond to nearly every single one.

I’m here to tell you of a new way to quantify community and a new way to gauge how well you are doing building that community. Let’s face it, while Gary is right – that community starts with one – you can’t achieve your goal with only one. It doesn’t matter if your goal is to spread a message, teach people about a given topic, sell a product, or earn money from advertising – you can’t do that with only one person in your community.

Try to think of your community as being in the room with you. And, if I may digress for one moment, by community I mean people that actively participate in whatever you are doing. Not every single person that walks by, but those that come into the room, chat, sit down, or even remove their coat. Having one person in the room with you is nice but add a few more and you’ve got a party.

I’ve had people that are building online communities say to me “I only have 600 people…” in their community. If you take Gary’s advice, you’re well on your way to building a large community. But, if you use this new way of gauging how well your community is doing – you’d have an incredibly full room and an amazing amount of potential.

Lets take my reasons for building a community above and break them down using that 600 person metric. Spreading a message, we’ll use the Green movement as an example, with 600 active community members in this movement you could do some real damage. You could make some big moves. If you had a room full of 600 people that are crazy about the Green movement – what could you do? You could storm an entire city and spread a message. You could create a campaign for each of those people to educate just one other person about using Green materials to build a house and you may come away with a much larger community in short order.

Now, onto the finances of it. If you’re building a community to make money – presumably through selling a product or service or by advertising – here is how having 600 people in your community is no joke. We see several tech conferences that cost hundreds of dollars each and every year. Even though the community members for these conferences have to fork over their hard-earned money to even get into the room, they are typically bombarded by information from various sponsors. Sponsors for these events, which sometimes have 500 to 1000 people at them, pay thousands of dollars for those sponsorships. Thousands. For one day events and a handout. So do you think you could find a sponsor for your community, especially one that aligns with the overall message or product for your community, that’d be willing to sponsor some type of activity or campaign? I have no doubt that you could.

I’m not suggesting that you go out and find sponsorships against your 600-person community. I’m simply showing you that with even a relatively small online community – it is full of potential.

So please stop complaining that your community isn’t full of millions of people. Maybe you don’t have a big enough room. Communities do not have to be millions strong to be valuable. Think of your community as being in the room with you and think of ways to energize that community much in the same way you would as if they really were in the room with you, and I believe the possibilities are endless.

My good friend Gary Vaynerchuk‘s new book “Why Now Is A Good Time To Crush It! And Cash In On Your Passion”, also called “CRUSH IT!”, is set to ship on October 13th. The new Web site for the book includes a sample chapter which gives a pretty good glimpse into the style and message of the book itself. In other words, it is dripping with Gary Vee.

His passion and methods have worked wonders for many brands including, but not limited to, his own personal brand, Wine Library TV, his family’s retail and online store Wine Library, Obsessed TV, Viddler, Tumblr, his first book, a cruise, and countless other properties, companies, and campaigns to come. I think he knows what he’s talking about.

I have high hopes for this book and I am looking forward to why Gary thinks now is a good time to cash in on your passion and how he suggests to do it.

My very good friend Gary Vaynerchuk recently gave a talk in New York City at #140conf, which is a essentially a conference about Twitter, dealing with scaling caring.

I’ve seen many of his talks and keynotes and this was one of the more focused and meaningful in recent memory. He touches on the fact that caring about your product, brand, business, and the community that you’re trying to build around such things is, indeed, hard work. There’s no silver bullet and yes you have to put in some long hours if you really, really care.

That, and he’s trying not to curse now which is something I’ve been trying to get him to stop doing during his talks for years but now that he’s got a little baby girl (who is as cute as a button) he’s making a real effort.

Money quote: “I’m the greatest contradiction of all time.” – @garyvee

Oh, and a few hours later he had some fun on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

I’ll spare you from boredom. Here is my day in under two minutes.

I haven’t done a MeToday video, or any video for that matter, in many months so I was happy to use the Board Meeting as an opportunity to just bring along the Flip camera and take miscellaneous shots to stitch together. The music I chose for this particular MeToday was Happening by The Supremes.

I think I should start featuring a “you may not have seen this video” video here on my site each and every day.  You see, it isn’t always the most popular videos that are worthy of attention. Yeah, I think I’ll do exactly that.

Source: Gary Vaynerchuk at Threadless on Viddler.

Some blogger I am, I didn’t even mention that I was going to go to the New Media Expo in Las Vegas.  Well, I did. And it was great. And you should have been there.

But now onto my point and why I used the above photo in this post.

Las Vegas is like Podcasting.  Sure, it is pretty well established.  There are very professional, glamorous, and dare I say elegant examples already in place. There are, of course, some “not so good” examples too – we’ll call them coolers – which inevitably show themselves in such a place.  But there is a fact which rings true and ever clearer in my ear now that I’ve attended the New Media Expo this year; it is still getting bigger.

Both Las Vegas and Podcasting are continuing to grow at a rate that seems fairly hard to calculate with any metric other than potential.  I was really happy to hear Gary Vaynerchuk say in his keynote speech on the first day of the Expo that people need to exercise patience and work hard to achieve their goals in podcasting.  And that mantra ran right through until the very last day.

People were very, very excited about the new tools, gear, the growing community and seeing each other’s faces – but more importantly they see that they can build a viable commodity all on their own, so long as they’re willing to work at it.

I was there, of course, with the Viddler team including Rob, Donna, Kyle, and Brandice.  We all had a great time sharing a booth with TubeMogul, meeting up with tons of Viddler members, and helping people set up their customizable Viddler players.

For weeks prior to the Expo we helped the New Media Expo team by setting up the video portion of their official site.  It ended up being a big hit for both the Expo and Viddler, and anyone not able to attend the Expo.  We consider video at these types of events to be the most powerful form of media for a backchannel. If you’re going to a conference, organizing one, or would just like information on how we put this together, be sure to drop me a line.

On the very last day Kyle, Brandice, and I created a show on-the-fly called Two Minutes at New Media Expo.  We did this by doing 2-minute interviews with as many people as we could on the last day of the Expo (which only went until 1 o’clock).  In that short amount of time we interviewed nearly 30 different expo attendees, companies, and even Kings. We have a bunch more episodes coming out so stay tuned! How did we do all of this? I’m planning on writing a post called “How to build a video podcast in 24 hours.”.  If you don’t see this by the end of next week yell at me.

I think I can speak for the entire Viddler team when I say that we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at the New Media Expo this year and that we’re looking forward to the next one.  Viva la New Media Expo!

Date taken: July 15, 2008 | Gary Vaynerchuk at his desk in Springfield, New Jersey.

I remember when the show was featured on the Podcast area of the iTunes Music Store, which lead to a sizable increase in traffic and the number of subscribers to both Wine Library TV’s Web site but also their Viddler account.  I bet this will be even better.

Congrats to the Wine Library TV crew!

Here are Gary’s television appearances, in order of their original airing (the list), starting with Mad Money with Jim Cramer from May 13, 2008.

Choose any video by clicking the title and that will reload the player.

1. Late Night with Conan O’Brien – August 1, 2007. #
2. The Ellen Degeneres Show – September 20, 2007. #
3. The Ellen Degeneres Show (recap) – September 21, 2007. #
4. ABCNews – Nightline – October 4, 2007. #
5. The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch- May 7, 2008. #
6. Late Night with Conan O’Brien – May 12, 2008. #
7. Mad Money with Jim Cramer – May 13, 2008. #

If you would like to embed any of these videos on your site, click the # (pound) symbol to go to their respective URLs to get the HTML embed code. If you need help with this task, you may ask in the comments of this post.

Notable Web videos

Gary has given many talks, speeches, and keynotes. I’m adding these to the list of television appearances because I believe some of these deserve a mention.

• Authors@Google: Gary Vaynerchuk, April 3, 2008

Gary in the press

Main stream media has not ignored Gary’s success either. Here is a small collection of press that Gary has received in newspapers, magazines, etc.

• NYMag: Does Your Wine Taste Like Stinky Socks Dipped in Cheese? – May 20, 2007
• Los Angeles Times: Wine Library TV: Robert Parker for a new generation? – March 12, 2008

Gary’s mission to “Change the wine world” is definitely underway.  You can help him by spreading the word about Wine Library TV, but more importantly Gary wants everyone to open up and try new things.  Don’t be afraid to go out of your comfort zone and enjoy wines that you’ve never had before.

Thanks for all of your hard work Gary.

If you have any links to add to this, please comment.

Note: This page to be continuously updated. Last update: May 19, 2008 – 12:13pm EST.

My friend Gary Vaynerchuk, who you may know as the host of WineLibrary TV, is now a published author and you can pre-order his book Gary Vaynerchuk’s 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World on Amazon.

Gary’s book is currently hovering at number 101, which will probably change before I even publish this post, on Amazon’s rankings list.

Wondering what wines to choose this year?  Gary’s book should help, in a unique way.

“Every wine identified in the book represents a lesson in a glass, complete with the technical notes, availability, and the story behind the vintage and flavors… all brought to life as only Gary knows how!”

I’m looking forward to getting my pre-ordered copy so that I can have the man himself sign it for me.

Source: About Gary’s first book.
Buy: Buy now from Amazon! 

Early Saturday at Indy Hall
View more photos from Indy Hall.

Independents Hall is nested nicely in Old City, two-floors above Strawberry Street (or what could be called an alley), and is now the venue for the future of coworking in Philadelphia. Spending the better part of the day there, on a Saturday, working with a few other people is a real joy. The space, the people, the weather – all factors in inspiring productivity.

My main reason for coming to Independents Hall on this day was to be part of the judging panel for the Viddler MealToday contest and to use the space’s grand opening party as the backdrop for the announcement of its winner. Alex Hillman, and the rest of the coworkers at Indy Hall, were all extremely accommodating – allowing us to take over a few of their desks for the day, a good portion of their second floor, their projector, and their board room. Really, we couldn’t have asked for better hosts.

I had a ball seeing all of the people in Philly again and had a great time judging MealTodays with Scott McNulty, Marisa McClellan, Rob Sandie, and Gary Vaynerchuk. We’ll be releasing a video later today We’ve released a video on the Viddler Spotlight (our blog), which shows what went on that night and that should give you a good glimpse into what it was like to be at Indy Hall’s party and to be judging the MealTodays.

With well over 100 people in attendance there is no doubt in Philadelphia’s interest in coworking and community (and probably champagne). Such support makes me both jealous and inspired to someday setup a coworking space further north of Philadelphia. But that won’t be until I have time to settle down.

If I didn’t get to say hi to you while in Philadelphia, sorry. I’ll be in again this weekend for Podcamp Philly.

I knew I’d be going to ViddlerHQ to giveaway the second iPhone for the month of July. Giving away an iPhone is a production in and of itself. You have to prepare the entries. Get everything together to do a video “broadcast” to announce the winner and try to build a little hype by involving the community along the way. This alone is a pretty big thing to accomplish in a day.

My mobile setup – at the offices of Viddler

We weren’t certain that we’d be launching a brand new version of our site and our player on this same day until about the day before. Yesterday we launched a new player that, although aesthetically the same, takes advantage of an entirely new infrastructure that the Viddler team had been building for quite some time. Video playback and responsiveness should be vastly improved for most people, especially those that were viewing videos that had a high amount of traffic associated to them. We also managed to release Viddler Groups which allows our users to create their own little communities to add video and discussions to. I’ve personally been waiting with baited breath for Groups since before we launched Version 2.0 in April.

Rob working hard

While we were rolling out Groups we had a hiccup. I’m no system administrator (not by any stretch of the imagination), but from what I gather it wasn’t something we could avoid because we experienced a problem during a routine automatic upgrade process that happened to coincide with our update. I’ll let Rob, Kasper, and/or Todd elaborate on this if they feel the need to. We were able to restore everything fairly quickly once the problem was indentified and release groups with much success!

While one contest was ending, another one was beginning. Our MeToday contest in July was such a success that we wanted to do it again – so we came up with what I think is a natural extension to the MeToday contest – the MealToday contest. Just tell Viddler what you ate or drank today and you can win your choice of an iPhone or Canon TX1 HD camcorder. We’re running this contest with two of our favorite Viddlers WineLibraryTV and ForkYouTV for the entire month of August. We’re now planning an event in Philadelphia for September 1st to giveaway this prize in style!

To top off the day our very own Viddler Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibraryTV was scheduled to be on Late Night with Conan O’brien! How much more jammed packed and fun could one day get? After watching Gary’s few moments with Conan last night – I have to say he did an extraordinarily good job. We’re all so proud of the success that WineLibraryTV has worked so hard for and we’re sure this trend will continue.

So that was my day; how was yours?

Gary Vaynerchuk in London
Photo credit: The hard working Tara Hunt

For those that do not know Gary, Wine Library TV, or Cork’d – let me take a second to catch you up to speed. Gary Vaynerchuk is the Director of Operations for Wine Library and began his career in wine at the ripe age of 17 (someone call the cops). He’s visited every major wine region on the planet, has probably tasted more wine this week than most people do in their adult lives, and is single handedly trying to “change the wine world” (or, trying to bring the community into every aspect of wine instead of it being an elitist club as it has been for so long).

Gary’s main mode of attack has been Wine Library TV, his daily video blog, where he tastes wine and rates it “live”. Even though he has personal relationships with most if not all of the vineyards that have their wine in his store, Gary does not hold back with his criticisms nor his accolades. His honesty, charisma, and passion for wine has made his video blog one of the top video blogs on the Internet and certainly the number one vlog for wine!

Cork’d, the brain-child of Dan Benjamin and Dan Cederholm, is a social network centered on keeping a wine journal and creating a list of wines you’d like to try based on what you’re friends have had. Cork’d is well built, beautifully designed, and bustling with active fans of wine.

For all of the above reasons – the merging of Gary Vaynerchuk’s empire with Cork’d is synergy++.

So now that you’re all caught up to speed, I thought I’d ask Gary a few questions about his acquisition of Cork’d and what it will mean for his current WLTV audience (of which I’ve been a member of since the very beginning).

When did you first discover Cork’d and when did you get interested it in as a property for Wine Library?

Gary: “Last May and last May! LOL. I knew this was it, I have been dreaming of launching a name I own, ratingwines.com, for 6 years (look it up) and when i saw Cork’d my dreams were dashed ”

I thought it was interesting that Gary knew he wanted to do something like Cork’d from the very beginning. This alone shows his dedication to his mantra or “changing the wine world”. Obviously the entire industry has been geared more towards paying attention to only a select few for wine ratings. Now, using Cork’d, one can see the consensus of the entire community rather than just one person using one rating system.

To show a little history here, Dan Benjamin shows that Wine Library was the longest running sponsor for Cork’d, which shows that Gary was always in the prime position to tap into this community and that Gary was always trying to help Cork’d become the best it possibly can be:

“One of our longest running advertisers was Wine Library TV, Gary Vaynerchuk’s excellent wine videocast. Each month, Gary would call us and buy out the top-spot in the Cork’d sidebar. Behind the scenes, he was always talking about partnering with us, coming up with ways we could enhance Cork’d, tie us in to his huge database of wines and wine labels – he really wanted to see Cork’d succeed.” — [source]

It is this dedication to helping something that he didn’t even own at the time that shows that Cork’d is in great hands going forward.

The synergy between Wine Library, Wine Library TV, your wine label service, and Cork’d are obvious! How long before we start to see all of these services mashed together, and what do you think the first thing to be integrated will be?

I’m a Vayniac – at Seneca Lake, NY
Get your shirt!

Gary: “Very soon! Give us 30-45 days to start wowing you!”

I’ve already seen and spoke to the WLTV crew about a few of the things they are working on. Obviously, being Viddler‘s Community Evangelist, I was interested to know how each episode of Wine Library TV (down to tasting each wine) would fit into this deal. Look for some pretty cool tie ins between Wine Library TV, Cork’d, and Viddler’s “linking to any moment” technology. However, as a “Vayniac”, I’m even more excited about having access to Gary’s tastings across this entire network of sites.

What part of this entire deal has you the most excited? I know for me its being able to watch the video of you tasting a wine that I may have had right from the Cork’d site. What about you?

Gary: “The fact that people can share and enjoy each other. Cork’d has given the infrastructure needed to create the wine community I dream of. I can’t wait to see wines have 100 reviews on them each, that will be fun!”

This also supports his mantra. At the end of each show, Gary emphasizes “You, with a little bit of me, we’re changing the wine world. Aren’t we?” Well now more than ever Gary is trying to put that power into the hands of the community rather than himself. Sure he’s the ring leader (and a very good one at that) but now all of us have the ability to say what we think about the wine’s we’re tasting and actually have it matter instead of falling on deaf ears.

You’ve got a ton of loyal Vayniacs that use the WineLibrary TV forums right now. Are all of us Vayniacs going to have to sign up to Cork’d and manage both accounts, or will you try to tie those two systems together somehow?

Gary: “I think the Vayniacs and everyone else will see the use. We will have a function that allows people to post a review on Cork’d and allow that review to go right to the WL Forum’s tasting notes, making it a whole 360 experience. My hope is people will see the huge value in using Cork’d though since it will also cellar your wines, keep a wish list, ect.”

The Cork’d blog (currently going through some DNS issues) has been silent for awhile, and never really took off. Do you see this as having more potential than just a random post every now and then? Do you have any plans for the Cork’d blog? I know you have a wine related blog already – can they be tied together somehow or will they remain separate?

Gary: “Not sure on this front but I think this is Cork’d's voice and it needs to be talkative. We mostly want to share thoughts and interact, I’m sure we will explore all possibilities.”

I’m a big proponent of blogging so I hope to see some of Cork’d's future plans, updates, and community efforts verbalized through their blog and on WLTV.

What will the JETS record be this year now that you’ve gone to the draft?

Gary: “16-0 with an easy win over the EAGLES;) honestly the 1st 2 games are brutal but a 10-6 is possible for sure!”

I’m pretty sure that jab is directed at Chris but I’ll let him respond.

Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions Gary. Personally I look forward to the developments that are sure to come in the near future to tie all of these great things together and really help us change the wine world one day at a time.

Additional coverage

There has been a pretty good amount of coverage since this acquisition was announced. Dan Cederholm and Dan Benjamin both wrote some really great background on the entire deal. Read Cederholm’s post and Benjamin’s post on their personal blogs. CenterNetworks was the first to get wind of this deal, but without having all the specifics they covered only the redesign of Wine Library TV’s main site. I’m thinking that someone over there is definitely doing their job. Mashable covered the actual deal but failed to get into many specifics and even got a few of their facts wrong. I think it is interesting to see, when you have inside knowledge of a “deal”, just how accurate some of these stories are (or are not). All in all I think the best coverage comes from those that keep their ear to the ground, are willing to ask for information before they post it, and strive to get every fact straight before they are willing to publish.

Update: Here is a photo of Gary wearing a Viddler shirt on Digg Nation.

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