I know, this is a wine blog, but to satisfy the technology geek in me, I wanted to comment on a new tool I recently added to my site: Lijit as a recommendation from Andrea of Andy’s Goode Life.  I promise, I’ll get back to wine next time. 

Lijit is basically a search tool that allows your readers to search for and access content on your site and the sites of everyone in your social network (via blogroll) from one place.  It’s only been on my site for one week and I have not performed a super-detailed or formal analysis, I’ll leave that up to the gentlemen at VinTank.  These are just some thoughts I jotted down when playing around with the tool.  I would love to hear some other opinions.  By the way, you can access it from the sidebar to the right under the Links directory.

Pros:

1. Setup was pretty easy and they have a fairly extensive list of social networking sites they are able to integrate with.  Additionally, it automatically uses your blogroll to begin building your network the engine uses.  This is configurable via your user page on the Lijit site.

2. The biggest value I see is the ability to access other sites from one place, rather than having to visit each site and performing a search on each one.

3. It uses the Google Search engine (pro/con?) which also allows Google ads (pro/con?) on the search results page to be more targeted and reducing search “noise”.

4. The “Explore” feature is pretty cool, though, is a little disappointing graphically.  With all of the technology that is available (i.e. Silverlight) today, I expected more.  It displays your network in bubbles and you can click through your network and access sites that way.  This is a feature that could benefit from some additional features to create more value, like some integration with other blog tools or the display of additional information about those sites.

Cons:

1. It doesn’t seem to discriminate between the content of posts and text elsewhere on the site, like the sidebars.  So, for example, when I entered “Murphy Goode”, the results page showed all my posts, even though most weren’t about MG, because I referenced Murphy Goode on a link in my sidebar… not sure technically if there is an easy way to “fine tune” this?

2. You are required to select a tab on the results page for the views you want: Blog, Network, etc.  However, the default tab is configurable, so that might reduce the con-ness of this feature in my mind.

3. It was not easy to find the “Close” button for the Explore bubble graphic to get me back to my blog page.  I eventually found it way in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.  Also, see disappointment in graphical capabilities above.

4. In the Explore feature I could not find a way to get back to “home”, or my site after drilling-down several layers through the network, without drilling back up, which will be harder to do as your network grows.  Granted, I never read user manuals so maybe there is a way to do this, but I am pretty good with figuring technology out and this should be intuitive.

In conclusion, as I said before, I think the value here is really the capability of searching a network of sites from one place, which makes it very convenient for the reader.  Of course, the level of value will be dependent upon how deep a particular site’s network is as well.  Other than that, I think it has some room for improvement in the area of ease of use and GUI (see Explore).

Today, let’s analyze the results of the “Thralls Throwdown” of California Cabs, and take a look at the tasters ability to identify the inexpensive vs. expensive wines and break down the tasting notes.  Here are the contenders again, with results:

Underdogs <= $15                           

2006 Avalon Napa Valley  ($15) — Everyone was able to determine this was a cheaper wine.  It had some perfumey, synthetic and alcohol aromas.  Tasters felt is seemed light for a Cab, but did present some decent tannins, slight vanilla/toffy and seemed to improve a bit after being open for a while.

2006 Bonterra Mendocino County  ($15) — Most were fooled as only 20% correctly identified this as an inexpensive vino.  Even though this wasn’t the “winner” of the tasting, I’d say this was the “value wine” of the night.  Had cedar, spice, and dark berries on the nose based on some of the tasters’ notes while the taste produced black cherry, currant and spice.

2005 Chateau St. Michelle Indian Wells  ($12) — Most were able to correctly determine this was a cheaper wine as only one felt it should’ve cost more.  Had an inky color to it as well as an enticing, mellow nose.  The taste produced a great mouthfeel throughout, great tannins and long spice finish.

Heavyweights     >= $30

2004 Joseph Phelps  ($42) — Everyone correctly ID’d this one as an expensive wine and it turned out to be everyone’s favorite as the WOTN (wine of the nite!).  Overall, I’d say this wine could be considered a “value” as well since the price is not astronomical for the wonderful characteristics this wine displayed.  It had the characteristic dark ruby color we were expecting and produced some caramel, toffy, tomato, a bit musty yet elegant nose.  The taste followed suit with some black fruit, chewy tannin, vanilla, and finished well.

2004 Seavey Napa Valley  ($90) — Only one taster was fooled into thinking this was an inexpensive wine, mostly living up to expectations.  There was some light cedar, violet, oak (finally! according to one taster) on the nose followed by big tannin making you lick your teeth, chewiness and long finish.  After compiling the notes, this really sounds like a great wine, which it was.  But, when compared to the Joseph Phelps, everyone agreed the JP provided some complexities and provided an overall better tasting experience.

2005 Amizetta “Complexity”  ($35) — Like Bonterra (but from the opposite, and not so flattering perspective), this one really fooled nearly everyone but one taster in thinking it was an inexpensive wine.  The nose exposed a shower curtain, synthetic aroma that was hard to shake.  I think this really got this wine off to a bad start and it was hard for the taste to recover:  the tannins were strong like bull, but seemed young to some, and was a like a nervous first date: playing hard to get.