Crès Ricards, the blog

The launch of "Crès Ricards, the microblog"

A few days ago we set up a syndication feed on the famous Twitter service.

If you have not heard of this service yet, in which case I recommend you read the Techcrunch France column (an excellent blog on Web 2.0, though in French of course!) "10 conseils pour bien utiliser Twitter", it is used to answer the question "what are you doing?".

Why did we set up this microblog?
Our internet approach is largely based on a desire to communicate with enthusiasts and future enthusiasts of our wines by sharing our passion with them and providing additional information about the wines, events and life at the winery.

Twitter fits in perfectly with this strategy and means that information that we currently do not include in our blog can be communicated more easily (particularly when on the move) and spontaneously.

This new channel of communication, like our blog, is written in French and English and is structured around a number of subjects (which may evolve over time) that appear at the start of each post:

• Twitt : instant information about what we are doing, what is happening at the winery, etc.
• Blog : announcements when a post has been added to our blog
• Tastings : events where you can meet us and places (restaurants, wine merchants, wine bars) in France and abroad where you can discover our wines.
• eBay offers: our eBay auctions at special "discovery" prices

How to consult and subscribe to this microblog
If you are already a member of Twitter or would like to become one, just add cresricards to your list of friends.
Otherwise you can consult and/or add this new RSS feed (French version / English version) to your favourite aggregator.

We welcome your opinions and comments on the addition of this new method of communication!

Guillaume Foltran

Launching your business on the web

The June edition of the magazine L'Entreprise contains a special report on this theme.
The Domaine des Crès Ricards is one of 7 featured businesses "who have succeeded on the web".
The part of the article about us relates our internet approach, which we have already discussed at some length in previous blogs!

On this occasion, the magazine sent Dahmane a professional photographer to the vineyard (each example being illustrated with 2 photos), with whom we spent a few very interesting hours.
I had no idea of the amount of work involved in producing two photos… preparing the equipment, make-up, composing the scene and no less than 170 shots, and the atmosphere throughout was both very professional and really friendly.

We therefore thank Amaury Mestre de Laroque for this article and Dahmane for the photos and the enjoyable time we had together. For more information about Dahmane’s work, I recommend visiting his website.

Guillaume Foltran

On the front page of the Innovation column of Les Echos

On 26 April, the Domaine des Crès Ricards had place of honour on the printed edition of the daily economics journal, under the title "Un site web professionnel pour 25 euros par mois" (a professional website for 25 Euros a month).

This highly detailed article by Virginie Robert (head of Innovation) sets out rather fully our internet strategy for the development of the vineyard and how we use web services to achieve it.
You can consult the whole article, as well as a flow diagram that explains our internet strategy.

A big thank you to Virginie Robert for this article, for the pleasant time we spent together and for showing me round the journal’s news room!

Guillaume Foltran

Crès Ricards 2.0 at the Sorbonne!

It was in the magnificent Liard amphitheatre at the Sorbonne that the ANDESE (national association of PhD-holders in Economics and Management Sciences) organised a symposium on Web 2.0 on 08 April this year.

Thanks to Louis Naugès, an expert in Web 2.0 information services and Chairman of Microcost, I was able to make a presentation at this symposium in the form of a practical demonstration of what these web services can provide in terms of added value to the way a micro-business like Domaine des Crès Ricards makes use of the internet.

In addition to the services that can be seen on our website, such Google Maps to locate restaurants that stock Crès Ricards wines and wine fairs we are attending, our Flick’r slide show, Mal’s and eBay e-commerce solutions and this blog, I also presented services such as Netvibes and Google Analytics that enable us to manage our internet business efficiently, all for about 20 euros a month and without resorting to the services of any IT professionals!

For more information, here are a few relevant links (in french):

• Louis Naugès's blog
• The Le ANDESE wiki created for the occasion and where you can find all the material from the presentation.
• The video on the Journal du Net
• My interview on the Billaut Show where I particularly discuss our approach.

Taken from discussions with Guillaume Foltran, our son and designer of the site Domaine des Crès Ricards.