Utterly Demonic: The WineDemon Blog

Being a WineDemon has its perks...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:25:00 +0100

We did a deal with our friends at D’Arry’s Cookhouse & Wine shop in Cambridge, one of the highest rated restaurants in in the area, so our local Demons could enjoy a mid-week treat without breaking the bank.

On Wednesday last week; the Demons took over a section of the cosy, ambient restaurant and were treated to some outstanding culinary delights and fine wines.

Everyone enjoyed using their iPhone and Android apps, snapping bottle shots and rating their wines.

The food was exceptional and the wine – well, with an extensive list of grape varieties and countries to suit all palates and price ranges, we couldn’t fault it.

Thanks to all the Demons who attended the evening; and to d’Arry’s for having us and giving us a great exclusive discount.

This night is being followed by another special offer evening held at the renowned Roger Hickman’s restaurant in Norwich on Wednesday 11^th April. There are only a couple of tables left, so if you would like further details please email us at team@winedemon.com .

Very soon we will be rolling out an exclusive offer for WineDemons, in top restaurants across the UK. Keep your eyes out for our emails which will let you know when the offer has been launched in your area.

To thank you for all your ratings we want to save you a few ££’s so you can enjoy a bit more wining, dining and rating!

Eat Well – Drink Better, for less.

Cheers,

Demon

WineDemon for Android is here…

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:52:59 +0000

If you have an Android phone, get your app here:

WineDemon Android App

With the success of the iPhone app launched back in December, we had an outcry from Demons asking us to make it available on Android smartphones.

Our developers have been busy bees packing all the great features of the iPhone 2.0 version into the new app including:

- The new fast rating process.

- Feeling Lazy option where we’ll fill in the details for you.

- Activity feed to see what your friends have been drinking with the option to ‘Cheers’ them.

- The settings screen where you can edit your account, see your respect score and find your friends.

- The search people option, so you can hook up with friends already on WineDemon even if they aren’t connected to you via Facebook, Twitter or email.

If you search for your wine loving friend and don’t find them, please do direct them our apps and website and help us build the world’s biggest, most trusted online wine community.

We now have over 10,000 users and over 100,000 ratings. Thank you so much for all your ratings and comments; we really couldn’t be here without you.

To show our appreciation we will soon to be making it even more rewarding to be a Demon, with some dazzling exclusive offers…keep your eyes on your inbox!

Enjoy the new app!

Cheers,

The Demon Team.

WineDemon v2.0 for iPhone is here...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:12:53 +0000

Brand new design and new features!

We’ve redesigned the app to make it much easier to use. Plus there are some new features we think you’re going to love:

- New rating process makes it faster than ever to rate a wine.

- Feeling lazy? As long as you’ve taken a photo of the label, we’ll complete the wine name for you and update your rating within 24 hours. We’ll e-mail you and send a push message to let you know.

- Want the best supermarket deal? Fire up WineDemon and see what Saturday Kitchen’s Olly Smith thinks of this week’s deals.

- New activity feed allows you to keep track of what your friends are drinking and give their best wines a Cheers!

- Redesigned wine slider when viewing the wines at a place. Easily see what your friends thought were the best wines there.

- Settings screen now allows you to view your friends, your previous ratings and update your account details.

- All reported bugs have been fixed!

What can we do to make WineDemon better (apart for make it for Android!)? We’ll read every comment on this blog and consider each idea!

Enjoy the update and Happy Christmas!

Cheers,

The Demon Team

Party poopers...

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:13:00 +0000

Dear Demons,

Earlier today we had to take the WineDemon website down and temporarliy remove the earning and redeeming of points. This was due to some rather unwanted visitors gaming the system just to get free wine.

These users were easily identified and their bogus reviews were removed.

The points system was designed to reward early adopters who would fill WineDemon with genuine reviews so it became more useful. We always said that if it got abused we would pull it.

We actually have enough reviews on the website (over 30,000) to offer meaningful recommendations in all the big supermarkets, most of the online retailers and a lot of restaurants too.

The good news is that we’ve worked up a fix so that if you joined prior to Sunday morning, everything should now be back to normal. You will be able to earn your points and redeem any you already have to spend at Naked Wines.

If you joined after Sunday morning you won’t be able to earn any more points. This may change in the future if we can think of a fair way to reward users for honest reviews.

WineDemon set out to help normal people drink better wines. To those of you who have supported us with reviews, thank you. Please don’t let a handful of party poopers spoil this project.

Keep submitting your ratings and we’ll continue to drinking better wines!

Any questions email me direct: greg@winedemon.com.

Cheers,

Greg Banbury

Co-Founder

**UPDATE** Tue 20th December, 08:46am

Guys, for clarity:

- if you came to WineDemon, submitted genuine reviews and ordered a case from Naked, thank you. Your wine will be delivered as promised, your WineDemon accounts remain open and we will try to re-introduce points in January in a fairer way.

- if you were one of those people who created several accounts under different email addresses to obtain multiple free cases, your wine will not be delivered, your WineDemon accounts have been closed, and your postcodes have been flagged with Naked Wines to stop future orders.

The majority of you did submit honest reviews and so, again, thank you and Happy Christmas!

Greg

WineDemon v1.5 - Update now!

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:59:00 +0000

We’ve just put a great new update live on the App Store!

New in v1.5:

- User feed: See what your friends have been up to in the new Feed screen. We’ll be updating this more in the weeks to come

- Best Wines Nearby: This is now the default screen when you launch the app, so if you’re looking for a great wine in walking distance just fire up WineDemon!

- New find and invite process: In the Friends screen you can search for your real friends using WineDemon by e-mail address, Facebook or Twitter. And if they aren’t using WineDemon, invite them right from the app.

- Numerous bug fixes based on your feedback, thank you and keep it coming!

If you have any ideas for future updates let us know in the comments or on Twitter @WineDemon.

Download the app here: http://itunes.com/app/WineDemon

Drum roll please...

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:00:36 +0000

The winner of the November ‘Best Job in the World’ competition is…

…Barrie Kuy of Middlesborough!

Congratulations Barrie, you’re the proud new owner of a £2,000 expense account to eat out at all your local restaurants.

Barrie is our first official WineDemon taster, and as part of his new job role will be rating all the wines he tries when he dines out on the expense account.

If you want to be our next official WineDemon taster, then get sharing the wines you drink and invite your friends to join you on WineDemon. It’s as easy as that!

We’ll keep you updated of Barrie’s activities as he burns his way through the expense account right here on the blog.

Fancy the 'Best Job in the World' and £2,000?

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:44:49 +0000

This week we’ll announce the November winner of our Best Job in the World competition.

There are loads of you in the running so get rating, inviting and sharing with your friends using WineDemon to be in with a chance.

The prize is a £2,000 expense account to take all your friends for dinner at your best local restaurants.

Your best bet is to invite your friends using Facebook, Twitter or old fashioned e-mail on your Friends page.

Winners will be notified by e-mail, and if you’re not lucky this time keep going…we’ll announce another winner in December!

We have a winner!

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:53:52 +0000

Congratulations to Stephen Robertson who rated over 140 wines in October to win a brand spanking new iPad 2!

Keep rating for your chance to win the ‘Best Job in the World’ and a £2,000 expense account to spend in your local restaurants and taste all their wines.

More details on the website, or just keep your eyes on the blog.

We have lift off...

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:40:00 +0100

On Thursday morning we came out of private beta, which means that anyone can now come and create a WineDemon account.

Because we still have a few bugs to iron out, and because we still need lots of ratings we’ve kept the beta sign up for now.

Early signs are encouraging - Naked Wines customers came flocking to the site on Friday and we now have nearly 3,000 WineDemon users and 30,000 ratings!

We’ll be fixing any bugs people find as they browse the site and will be updating regularly

There will also be an update to the iPhone app next week, with some nice design tweaks to make using the app easier.

Keep those ratings coming and remember it’s more fun if you invite your friends!

Not long until we open the doors to the WineDemon website. Until...

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:48:16 +0100

Not long until we open the doors to the WineDemon website. Until then here’s an sneaky peak at what to expect!

WineDemon is coming...

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 09:40:00 +0100

WineDemon is launching to UK wine drinkers very soon.

It’s aim? To help you avoid those socially embarrassing situations…

Like being given the wine list in a restaurant when you don’t have a clue. And the overbearing sommelier is recommending a bottle costing about double what you had in mind.

Or when you’re standing in the supermarket aisle, faced with 300 bottles of wine on ‘special offer’, without a clue what to buy for tonight’s dinner.

Or when you’re taking a client out for a meal in a City you don’t know and want them to leave suitably impressed.

Or when, well, you get the idea.

In so many places we’re called upon to choose a wine and can’t confidently pick one we know we’ll like for sure. Well, with the aid of the internet, your phone and your friends, the answer lies in WineDemon.

Simply fire up the website, or the iPhone app (Android coming soon!) and WineDemon will tell you the very best wines in the place you are, or that you’re interested in, according to the people you trust.

Right now, we’re beta testing to a select group of people to make sure we have all the data we need, and some wine ratings so that when we open the doors it all makes sense.

Keep your eye on this blog for updates.