Power to the Beer Drinkers

Beer, Blogging, and the Pursuit of Content

For my first blog entry, I thought it would be appropriate to give some background about this website. Ever since social networks started to pick up steam in 2005, I have had an interest in this trend. It is a great way for a community of people to build and share an incredible amount of content. After kicking around a few different takes on this phenomenon and seeing MySpace and Facebook become two of the top ten sites on the web, I was very antsy to get some form of a social network up and running. However, there was one small problem. I had zero developer knowledge. As I started to build my other website (www.gallaghersbeerguide.com), I would track the latest developments of Web 2.0 on Techcrunch (www.techcrunch.com). This site discusses and to a certain extent reviews the latest happening on the Internet’s front lines. It was here that I discovered Ning (www.ning.com). The great benefit of the fast-moving Web world we live in, is that after a new service finds success, the tech geniuses out there soon make it available for the less technologically inclined like myself, which leads us back to Ning’s great platform. Basically, they have boiled down the complexities of building a social network into a few easy steps so anybody can create a website about anything they want. Once discovering this service, nothing was holding me back from creating my own social network.

The logic behind creating a social network just for beer drinkers simply came from the fact that MySpace and Facebook are doing such a good job of being everybody’s home on the web so that the only real opportunity left was serving niches. I decided I wanted Democracy’s Drink to be one of your secondary social networks. Since I was already building a website about beer, I decided to expand my idea and create a bundle of websites that provide useful destinations on the web for the average beer drinker as well as for enthusiasts. There are a lot of great sites about beer out there ranging from Beer Blogs to sites like Rate Beer and Beer Advocate. I wanted to create a bunch of smaller sites that just focused on specific web services. I thought that Gallagher’s Beer Guide could be the average person’s guide to navigate through the world’s various beer styles and now with Ning, I decided I could create a place for Beer Drinkers to call home. If Facebook or MySpace is your home on your web, we want to be the virtual equivalent of the brewpub you go to for a few beers.

In this whole process the easiest thing to pick was the name. When trying to come up with a name for my beer guide, I bought a bunch of domains and toyed with hundreds of ways to refer to the world’s oldest beverage. I came across names for beer ranging from “Frat Sodas” to “Who punched Johnny”. Of the 30 ones I actually liked, I decided Democracy’s Drink was the obvious choice for my social network. Since this is the home of beer drinkers on the web and a place where everybody has a voice, it is in essence a democracy. Through the various tools Ning provides on its platform (music, blogs, profiles, groups, pictures, videos, forum, etc.) the users of Democracysdrink.com are empowered to express their voices about beer in many different ways.

Democracy’s Drink is still brand new and like any democracy will only become as great as those who participate in it. We need our users to contribute content - social networks fit into the age-old chicken or egg dilemma. Content drives users and users drive content, so either way WE will only become successful with your participation. Please tell your friends about our community (particularly your beer-loving ones) and contribute anything from the world of beer that you find interesting, because chances are our users will enjoy it too. Additionally, in keeping with the theme of democracy, we will do our best to keep this a level-playing field as content is posted. We don’t want this to be a platform for any brewery to take over and use as a target market.

Lastly, there is no better way on the web to express your voice than through a blog. Each user has the opportunity to start their own blog on their page. Write and share anything that interests you. Every entry will make our site that much better. The other interesting way this site can help users express their voice is through the Feed feature. At the bottom left hand corner of everyone’s page there is a box where users can import their blog from another site. If you have a blog already up and running through a service like blogger, you simply put your blog’s code in the feed, and your profile on Democracy’s Drink will pull in the headlines and lead sentences of your recent blog entries. That way you show our community your latest musings. If one of our users sees a headline that interests them, they click on the link to your blog and are fed right into your site. This is a great way for bloggers to take advantage our community and promote their own blog.

We are excited to hear your voice.