I’m very pleased to formally launch the project I’ve been working on with WineBid - the WineBid search bar (version 2.0)!
A little background: With what little time I have to play around Wine Berserkers and actually read threads about wine (the whole reason I started this community!), I often found that I’d read about a wine that I suddenly wanted to know more about, about how much it costs, how widely available it is, etc. With Russ at the helm of ‘the new’ WineBid, I was able to get them as excited about it as I was, as it is a tool that we can all use (more info on that below), and they were willing to customize the results so they are geared more directly to Wine Berserkers’ needs, i.e. if you enter a specific search term (let’s say 1997 Chateau Palmer) and there are no live auctions available, you’ll see a price history graph (I was so excited we could do this - see example below in this post). When there are live auctions, obviously you’ll see those.
Rather than keeping a separate tab open and jockeying back and forth, we were able to bring this search bar readily available to you via a collapsible, ‘zoom out’ function you so you can access it instantly. The query will open the tab for you, with your results laid out immediately, and, if you are signed in, you’ll stay signed in so you can quickly add the wine to favorites, etc. This will ONLY be on Wine Talk, not Asylum, Offline Planner, Politics, etc. I did originally talk with both WineBid and Wine-Searcher, and ended up with WineBid primarily because of the shared excitement and ability to create this custom landing page and search bar to implement within the community.
Who will see it? Everybody except Grand Cru Crü members will see it by default, and GCC members, as part of the ‘benefits package’ of their membership (which includes BerserkerDay Preview, BerserkerDay Early Purchase, AND no ads) can elect INTO the WineBid search bar, and still keep the rest of their benefits. I did this because I know many of the GCC members are on the forum quite a lot, as am I, and I pursued this project because I wanted it for myself, frankly, and knew others would find it useful as well. How do the GCC members opt-in? Simply go to your User Control Panel (upper right under your name), click on the Usergroups tab, and check the radio button by Grand Cru Crü WineBid. I’ll be trying to look at those multiple times a day as we start, approving them all as needed, and if you have an urgent need to be opt-in for the WineBid search bar, just PM me! If you want to opt-out, just PM me
Design: After trial and error (in live mode) we are now going with a floating, dynamic WineBid logo in the bottom left, where there is open space on the forum (username/avatar sections) as it moves with you as you browse, making sure that the search bar is always accessible, so that when you read about a wine within a thread, the search bar is ready and waiting for your query. Mouseover the logo and you’ll see ‘helper text’ of ‘WineBid Search Bar - click to expand’. Click it, and the search bar comes out for your text entry.
As always, questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome. Much to my surprise, the beta testers from WB were universally excited about it, with very little to no suggestions to change, and zero complaints. That is rare to find, to be sure, but once I launched live, the complaints and suggestions on the first design iteration came flowing, and hopefully now we’ve got a suitable option that pleases everyone and provides a handy tool for those of us who like to search for wines while browsing the Wine Talk forum.
Here’s a screenshot of the 1997 Chateau Palmer inquiry, as an example of what you’ll see if there are no live auctions: