Mashable recently blogged about drinking social networking sites. With my very own BeerChief under constuction, i was obviously very interested..
They make an excellent point in the opening paragraph..
“In good times and bad, alcohol sales stay consistent. Thus, if the supposed Web 2.0 bubble pops, these social networking sites catered to beer, wine, and spirits enthusiasts should have no problem surviving the shakeout.”
This is very true – alcohol is always a winner. Therefore anything alcohol related is going to sell on some scale. Especially here in Ireland – the capital of drinking. I went on to discover some competition. Most of the sites mentioned are wine sites, young people don’t drink wine 
I came across CherryTAP which is a huge site; over 1 million members and always about 50k online at any stage. The site is beer-related and very close to my own BeerChief. I was disappointed in myself that i hadn’t come across it earlier as i could have monitored it’s progress and learned some lessons.
Anyway, i believe CheeryTAP is successful not because of it’s design or features, but because of it’s niche alone. It is unrivalled in the whole social network beer site area. Up until now, i thought BeerChief would be unrivalled, but CherryTAP is now something we must aim to beat.
At first glance, it is nothing special. Eye-straining colours, failure to get the .net and .org extensions, loads of auto scrolling ajax stuff.. it’s all a bit retro for my liking – too cluttered and not simplified enough. Already, i know as a general browser, i would prefer BeerChief on first glance. Of course it’s easy to say that as BeerChief is still only on paper but once we complete it, i think you’ll agree.
I would call CherryTAP the myspace of beer sites, whereas BeerChief will be more of a ‘bebo’ of beer sites. Easier on the eye, more user friendly and more polished.
Game on 
