6 ms·

Scathing review of Scvngr by burned customer

75 points by thesausageking 15y ago

tejaswiy 15y ago
Slightly offtopic to the article, but is it just me or does anyone else think the wine culture and an iPhone app + game mechanics just don't go well together? I mean, the people that enjoy wine seem to be, well, just enjoying it without needing any additional incentive to have more of it? "Sample five wines and you get X points with a 'Wine taster' badge!". Just doesn't sound quite right does it ?
- jcol 15y ago
  There are many different kinds of people that drink wine.
- code_duck 15y ago
  One does need to keep in mind the target audience, especially when targeting niches. If you doesn't have personal experience or a good advisor who does, it's possible to miss the mark culturally. Products that do that stand out as contrived, or simply puzzle those who were intended to use them.
- mikeryan 15y ago
  Actually it does, it sounds like you have't spent a weekend in the Sonoma or Napa Valley area (I don't mean this disparagingly). A large part of what you do is drive around a large countryside tasting wines at various family owned and operated winery tasting rooms, interspersed with tasty meals. Many of the best wineries are way off the beaten track and there are many wineries who only sell their wine at their tasting rooms so getting traffic into them is crucial. Something like what scvnger provides would be a great way for those who don't know the area to find some of those off the beaten track gems.
  - tejaswiy 15y ago
    I agree with what you're saying, but I don't think iPhone apps driven by game mechanics are the right answer to this problem. It doesn't necessarily go with the relaxed Joie de vivre attitude of wine tasters. I feel it translates the experience from about enjoying wine to a mindless WoW quest like experience where all you want to do is to accomplish a set of objectives to get your reward.
pseudonym 15y ago
Getting a server error when I hit the page, so pasting the text of the article below: One of our jobs is to find technologies that will help the wine industry succeed. We often look outside the wine industry to find incredible solutions that help wineries in any way possible. Through extensive research, analysis, and lots of white board sessions we try to surface the technologies that seem most helpful. Fortunately we have only made two mistakes in technologies that we have strongly supported in our three year history. Our most notable was Scvngr. In the beginning, Scvngr seemed like it had innovated where other platforms had stagnated (Gowalla and Foursquare were struggling to innovate at the time). They offered a level of interactivity that was not just about checking in but about engagement. They had fair pricing and a rapidly growing user base. We loved the way they viewed game theory. So as a location based service that would work for the wine industry, we chose them. Everything was champagne and roses at first. Scvngr offered rewards for engagement. In a hospitality industry, this seemed like a perfect fit. They had unique features (taking pictures, answering quizes, etc) and fun mapping tools called Treks to tie locations together to earn rewards. Scvngr loved the wine industry because we represented a use case for regions that could easily overlay a game layer with mass tourism and strong hospitality culture. For us it also represented an innovative way to engage consumers in both the digital world and the physical world and deepen the engagement when people visit any winery tasting room. Scvngr made us promises to ensure this was a giant success (with the potential that they could roll it out to other tourist/hospitality based locations with our case study like Las Vegas, Disneyland, et al). This is what they committed: Promise: They promised to give all Napa merchants (restaurants, retailers, hotels, etc) free Scvngr rewards programs and games. They also promised to support businesses with training and help to understand how to build rewards and more. Result: They soon released this feature to all businesses nullifying the value and barely touched anyone who signed up. Promise: They promised to have a Mashable party in Napa to celebrate their new launch with Robert Mondavi Winery and Franciscan winery as part of a major release. They even talked about it with a strong press initiative. Result: We are still waiting. Promise: Setting up multiple Napa treks to make game play in Napa incredibly interesting for Napa tourists. This was intended to spread to Paso Robles, Sonoma, Walla Walla, and beyond. Result: Pretty much the same as above. Promise: They assured us that they would add new game mechanics that would be extraordinarily useful to the wine industry. Result: The platform has been stagnant since their VC investment of $15 million dollars and their focus completely changed to a new product called thelevelup.com (yes, another “flash in the pan” – flash sale site). Our promise: We would share our passion about their innovative product, our time, and our relationships to help the wine industry benefit from this new type of engagement. We signed a contract for biz dev fees which we waived to give discounts to all wineries that work with us on digital brand management so they could be involved in the treks and more. Three of our wineries signed up, one pre-paid (and was fortunately refunded but only after threatening legal action). I recently saw a Scvngr campaign with the Napa Valley Vintners for the annual auction (I am curious how successful the campaign was) and upon calling Scvngr, their statement was, “We don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to those previous promises. If you can find us some resellers . . .” Uh, no. How about you fulfill your promises made to us and the wine industry as a whole. All indicators pointed to Scvngr becoming a winner and helping wineries deepen their engagement with consumers. Sorry to all that joined us in this debacle. We really believed in them and made a rare mistake betting on their horse. The net net is that we picked a “dog.” Perhaps it was the money that diluted their focus. Perhaps the VC’s shifted direction and the young management didn’t have the experience to properly communicate. Perhaps they don’t understand the meaning of a partnership or a promise. Maybe they don’t like the wine industry. Whatever the reason, the lesson for us was make sure vision is supported by execution and find partners that really keep their promises. In this case, we have ALL deleted Scvngr from our mobile phones and we are back on Foursquare (who has lapped Scvngr times ten in the last six months with awesome functionality) and Gowalla. Visit us anytime at the “tank” and check in (with Foursquare or Gowalla, that is).
seto28 15y ago
Given that Napa is so close to the bay area, it might have made more sense to partner with a local company from YC etc. than one on the east coast.
- jsavimbi 15y ago
  To be fair to the Scavngr folks, inexperienced self-flattering wankers that they are, I don't think it would've made any difference whom these people chose as a technology provider as it is evident that Vintank lacks the basic clarity required to a) identify and understand current or future trends in the market and b) they can't even keep a fucking blog afloat, a pretty basic task that should've been learned after a three-year history of ... what it is these people do again? A digital think tank for the wine industry? Obviously not a work tank. Because that would entail actually having a skill. I cannot speculate what caused them to chose Scavngr over any other service, what type of agreement, if any, that they had in place with them, nor how they were going to measure results if any were to be produced. I also cannot name the particular strain of toxoplasmosis that would cause someone to believe that a company whose business model depends on mass adoption would somehow see that restricting a subset of functionality to a particular industry segment would be financially beneficial to them. The person who wrote this so-called review is ignorant, uninformed and unqualified. Scavngr isn't dedicating any resources to these types of products because there is no market for it. It's as simple as that and their board has told them to spend their money in another direction. Sorry, you lose.
  - mdonahoe 15y ago
    Scvngr, not Scavngr.
    - jsavimbi 15y ago
      I couldn't even be arsed to spell it the way they want. That's my level of enthusiasm for them. It's branding failure on their part as I live down the street from their office and see their ridiculous vinyl-wrapped Cayenne all the time. On another note, it occurs to me that the complaint levied against Scvngr, albeit illegitimate, is quite common. Normals couldn't be expected to understand what exactly it is they're getting into when partnering with a social service, especially one who has to pivot every six months to stay in business. But to label them a flash-in-the-pan is a little too much coming from a think tank for wine producers.
dolinsky 15y ago
I'm going to go out on a short limb and guess that most users here don't understand who Vintank is or much about the wine industry in general. The group at Vintank are hardly 'middlemen wanting some biz dev money'. I've had the pleasure recently to meet Paul Mabray as I'm currently diving into the wine world myself with an idea I've already pivoted on once with, and I can say with a lot of confidence that these aren't just another group of marketing guys trying to make a buck. Paul has a phenomenal reputation in the wine world and is one of the preeminent voices when it comes to discussing how to bring the old way of thinking by most wineries to the new ways of social media. If things went down as Paul described, then Scvngr snubbed a whole industry, not just one company. Edit: Vintank also share the same passion for unifying and making wine 'facts' free for all in the same way that SimpleGeo does with location data. Anyone who spends more than 5 minutes in the wine world knows the horrible state of fragmented / incomplete wine facts (not reviews,tasting notes,ratings) and how that holds the industry back as a whole. Just trying to paint a picture of who Vintank is for those here who don't know.
- pmabray 15y ago
  Thank you David.
ideadude 15y ago
Server is back up. Be gentle ;) Jason coleman, stranger studios, winelog
pmabray 15y ago
Sorry for our site being down - service error from our provider. It is back up now. Paul Mabray VinTank
vintank 15y ago
Just wanted to let everyone know that the site is up and you can view the post at http://www.vintank.com/2011/06/why-we-abandoned-scvngr-and-you-should-too/ http://www.vintank.com/2011/06/why-we-abandoned-scvngr-and-y...
Alex3917 15y ago
"We really believed in them and made a rare mistake betting on their horse. The net net is that we picked a 'dog.'" The real mistake was betting on game mechanics without understanding the underlying psychological principles. The vast majority of 'game mechanics' startups are con artists, and without understanding the academic research on motivational psychology you're just giving your money away.
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  How in the world is any normal person going to be able to really "understand the underlying psychological principals"? That is really akin to saying you shouldn't buy software without understanding the underlying architecture and design principals.
parfe 15y ago
Was vintank a customer? Were they paying for any services? Edit: the blog comments feel like Astroturf. Edit 2: submitter looks like a sock puppet account.
- jsavimbi 15y ago
  You've got it.
- thesausageking 15y ago
  Abe Froman here. I'm no puppet. I've had this account for a while and had never heard of these guys before I saw this post (I don't even drink wine). With all of the hyperbole and big money around companies like scvgr I thoughtit was interesting to hear theother side
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - parfe 15y ago
    Ferris Bueller's Age Froman? Your account hasn't been around for a while. It's 7 days old.
stickfigure 15y ago
I'm pretty confused by this post. Just what did you commit in this "exchange"? It sounds like you wanted to help an LBS service in the wine industry, and the one you picked turned out not to have a sustainable business. Well, none of the LBSes are making money and when the VC wears off, Foursquare may be in the same boat. This is the risk of being an early adopter... it's a bummer when it doesn't work out but I don't see why you are A) surprised or B) angry. I don't know anything specific about Scvngr's business, but I spent a good chunk of a year building an LBS (www.mobca.st, fwiw) that really doesn't have any financial future. If you are upset for after "investing" a man-month of thought and a few chats with industry bigwigs over $200 bottles of Merlot, consider a moment the disappointment that the Scvngr team must feel when they set aside the game they've poured their hearts into so they can get to work building a dumb Groupon clone. Your punishment doesn't even register. When a product goes south, the stringed instrument which plays Ave Maria for you is limited to: * Founders - Double Bass * Employees - Cello * Investors - Viola * Paying Customers - Violin * Everyone Else - AM radio, if you can get reception
- Hisoka 15y ago
  I'm sorry but the attitude in your post really bothers me. Scvngr is a business, if you give them money, you expect to receive the services you promise - case closed. Customers don't care if you're short on cash, stressed out, overworked, or yo-yoing between missions statements and projects. As a customer, I shouldn't care one single bit how the Scnvgr team feels (as a programmer, yes I have empathy, but not as a customer).
  - stickfigure 15y ago
    There's no indication in the original article that they gave Scvngr any money. From all appearances, the OP only qualifies as "Everyone Else".

Slightly offtopic to the article, but is it just me or does anyone else think the wine culture and an iPhone app + game mechanics just don't go well together? I mean, the people that enjoy wine seem to be, well, just enjoying it without needing any additional incentive to have more of it? "Sample five wines and you get X points with a 'Wine taster' badge!". Just doesn't sound quite right does it ?

jcol 15y ago
There are many different kinds of people that drink wine.
code_duck 15y ago
One does need to keep in mind the target audience, especially when targeting niches. If you doesn't have personal experience or a good advisor who does, it's possible to miss the mark culturally. Products that do that stand out as contrived, or simply puzzle those who were intended to use them.
mikeryan 15y ago
Actually it does, it sounds like you have't spent a weekend in the Sonoma or Napa Valley area (I don't mean this disparagingly). A large part of what you do is drive around a large countryside tasting wines at various family owned and operated winery tasting rooms, interspersed with tasty meals. Many of the best wineries are way off the beaten track and there are many wineries who only sell their wine at their tasting rooms so getting traffic into them is crucial. Something like what scvnger provides would be a great way for those who don't know the area to find some of those off the beaten track gems.
- tejaswiy 15y ago
  I agree with what you're saying, but I don't think iPhone apps driven by game mechanics are the right answer to this problem. It doesn't necessarily go with the relaxed Joie de vivre attitude of wine tasters. I feel it translates the experience from about enjoying wine to a mindless WoW quest like experience where all you want to do is to accomplish a set of objectives to get your reward.

pseudonym 15y ago

Getting a server error when I hit the page, so pasting the text of the article below: One of our jobs is to find technologies that will help the wine industry succeed. We often look outside the wine industry to find incredible solutions that help wineries in any way possible. Through extensive research, analysis, and lots of white board sessions we try to surface the technologies that seem most helpful. Fortunately we have only made two mistakes in technologies that we have strongly supported in our three year history. Our most notable was Scvngr. In the beginning, Scvngr seemed like it had innovated where other platforms had stagnated (Gowalla and Foursquare were struggling to innovate at the time). They offered a level of interactivity that was not just about checking in but about engagement. They had fair pricing and a rapidly growing user base. We loved the way they viewed game theory. So as a location based service that would work for the wine industry, we chose them. Everything was champagne and roses at first. Scvngr offered rewards for engagement. In a hospitality industry, this seemed like a perfect fit. They had unique features (taking pictures, answering quizes, etc) and fun mapping tools called Treks to tie locations together to earn rewards. Scvngr loved the wine industry because we represented a use case for regions that could easily overlay a game layer with mass tourism and strong hospitality culture. For us it also represented an innovative way to engage consumers in both the digital world and the physical world and deepen the engagement when people visit any winery tasting room. Scvngr made us promises to ensure this was a giant success (with the potential that they could roll it out to other tourist/hospitality based locations with our case study like Las Vegas, Disneyland, et al). This is what they committed: Promise: They promised to give all Napa merchants (restaurants, retailers, hotels, etc) free Scvngr rewards programs and games. They also promised to support businesses with training and help to understand how to build rewards and more. Result: They soon released this feature to all businesses nullifying the value and barely touched anyone who signed up. Promise: They promised to have a Mashable party in Napa to celebrate their new launch with Robert Mondavi Winery and Franciscan winery as part of a major release. They even talked about it with a strong press initiative. Result: We are still waiting. Promise: Setting up multiple Napa treks to make game play in Napa incredibly interesting for Napa tourists. This was intended to spread to Paso Robles, Sonoma, Walla Walla, and beyond. Result: Pretty much the same as above. Promise: They assured us that they would add new game mechanics that would be extraordinarily useful to the wine industry. Result: The platform has been stagnant since their VC investment of $15 million dollars and their focus completely changed to a new product called thelevelup.com (yes, another “flash in the pan” – flash sale site). Our promise: We would share our passion about their innovative product, our time, and our relationships to help the wine industry benefit from this new type of engagement. We signed a contract for biz dev fees which we waived to give discounts to all wineries that work with us on digital brand management so they could be involved in the treks and more. Three of our wineries signed up, one pre-paid (and was fortunately refunded but only after threatening legal action). I recently saw a Scvngr campaign with the Napa Valley Vintners for the annual auction (I am curious how successful the campaign was) and upon calling Scvngr, their statement was, “We don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to those previous promises. If you can find us some resellers . . .” Uh, no. How about you fulfill your promises made to us and the wine industry as a whole. All indicators pointed to Scvngr becoming a winner and helping wineries deepen their engagement with consumers. Sorry to all that joined us in this debacle. We really believed in them and made a rare mistake betting on their horse. The net net is that we picked a “dog.” Perhaps it was the money that diluted their focus. Perhaps the VC’s shifted direction and the young management didn’t have the experience to properly communicate. Perhaps they don’t understand the meaning of a partnership or a promise. Maybe they don’t like the wine industry. Whatever the reason, the lesson for us was make sure vision is supported by execution and find partners that really keep their promises. In this case, we have ALL deleted Scvngr from our mobile phones and we are back on Foursquare (who has lapped Scvngr times ten in the last six months with awesome functionality) and Gowalla. Visit us anytime at the “tank” and check in (with Foursquare or Gowalla, that is).

seto28 15y ago

Given that Napa is so close to the bay area, it might have made more sense to partner with a local company from YC etc. than one on the east coast.

jsavimbi 15y ago
To be fair to the Scavngr folks, inexperienced self-flattering wankers that they are, I don't think it would've made any difference whom these people chose as a technology provider as it is evident that Vintank lacks the basic clarity required to a) identify and understand current or future trends in the market and b) they can't even keep a fucking blog afloat, a pretty basic task that should've been learned after a three-year history of ... what it is these people do again? A digital think tank for the wine industry? Obviously not a work tank. Because that would entail actually having a skill. I cannot speculate what caused them to chose Scavngr over any other service, what type of agreement, if any, that they had in place with them, nor how they were going to measure results if any were to be produced. I also cannot name the particular strain of toxoplasmosis that would cause someone to believe that a company whose business model depends on mass adoption would somehow see that restricting a subset of functionality to a particular industry segment would be financially beneficial to them. The person who wrote this so-called review is ignorant, uninformed and unqualified. Scavngr isn't dedicating any resources to these types of products because there is no market for it. It's as simple as that and their board has told them to spend their money in another direction. Sorry, you lose.
- mdonahoe 15y ago
  Scvngr, not Scavngr.
  - jsavimbi 15y ago
    I couldn't even be arsed to spell it the way they want. That's my level of enthusiasm for them. It's branding failure on their part as I live down the street from their office and see their ridiculous vinyl-wrapped Cayenne all the time. On another note, it occurs to me that the complaint levied against Scvngr, albeit illegitimate, is quite common. Normals couldn't be expected to understand what exactly it is they're getting into when partnering with a social service, especially one who has to pivot every six months to stay in business. But to label them a flash-in-the-pan is a little too much coming from a think tank for wine producers.

dolinsky 15y ago

I'm going to go out on a short limb and guess that most users here don't understand who Vintank is or much about the wine industry in general. The group at Vintank are hardly 'middlemen wanting some biz dev money'. I've had the pleasure recently to meet Paul Mabray as I'm currently diving into the wine world myself with an idea I've already pivoted on once with, and I can say with a lot of confidence that these aren't just another group of marketing guys trying to make a buck. Paul has a phenomenal reputation in the wine world and is one of the preeminent voices when it comes to discussing how to bring the old way of thinking by most wineries to the new ways of social media. If things went down as Paul described, then Scvngr snubbed a whole industry, not just one company. Edit: Vintank also share the same passion for unifying and making wine 'facts' free for all in the same way that SimpleGeo does with location data. Anyone who spends more than 5 minutes in the wine world knows the horrible state of fragmented / incomplete wine facts (not reviews,tasting notes,ratings) and how that holds the industry back as a whole. Just trying to paint a picture of who Vintank is for those here who don't know.

pmabray 15y ago
Thank you David.

ideadude 15y ago

Server is back up. Be gentle ;) Jason coleman, stranger studios, winelog

pmabray 15y ago

Sorry for our site being down - service error from our provider. It is back up now. Paul Mabray VinTank

vintank 15y ago

Just wanted to let everyone know that the site is up and you can view the post at http://www.vintank.com/2011/06/why-we-abandoned-scvngr-and-you-should-too/ http://www.vintank.com/2011/06/why-we-abandoned-scvngr-and-y...

Alex3917 15y ago

"We really believed in them and made a rare mistake betting on their horse. The net net is that we picked a 'dog.'" The real mistake was betting on game mechanics without understanding the underlying psychological principles. The vast majority of 'game mechanics' startups are con artists, and without understanding the academic research on motivational psychology you're just giving your money away.

SoftwareMaven 15y ago
How in the world is any normal person going to be able to really "understand the underlying psychological principals"? That is really akin to saying you shouldn't buy software without understanding the underlying architecture and design principals.

parfe 15y ago

Was vintank a customer? Were they paying for any services? Edit: the blog comments feel like Astroturf. Edit 2: submitter looks like a sock puppet account.

jsavimbi 15y ago
You've got it.
thesausageking 15y ago
Abe Froman here. I'm no puppet. I've had this account for a while and had never heard of these guys before I saw this post (I don't even drink wine). With all of the hyperbole and big money around companies like scvgr I thoughtit was interesting to hear theother side
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- parfe 15y ago
  Ferris Bueller's Age Froman? Your account hasn't been around for a while. It's 7 days old.

stickfigure 15y ago

I'm pretty confused by this post. Just what did you commit in this "exchange"? It sounds like you wanted to help an LBS service in the wine industry, and the one you picked turned out not to have a sustainable business. Well, none of the LBSes are making money and when the VC wears off, Foursquare may be in the same boat. This is the risk of being an early adopter... it's a bummer when it doesn't work out but I don't see why you are A) surprised or B) angry. I don't know anything specific about Scvngr's business, but I spent a good chunk of a year building an LBS (www.mobca.st, fwiw) that really doesn't have any financial future. If you are upset for after "investing" a man-month of thought and a few chats with industry bigwigs over $200 bottles of Merlot, consider a moment the disappointment that the Scvngr team must feel when they set aside the game they've poured their hearts into so they can get to work building a dumb Groupon clone. Your punishment doesn't even register. When a product goes south, the stringed instrument which plays Ave Maria for you is limited to: * Founders - Double Bass * Employees - Cello * Investors - Viola * Paying Customers - Violin * Everyone Else - AM radio, if you can get reception

Hisoka 15y ago
I'm sorry but the attitude in your post really bothers me. Scvngr is a business, if you give them money, you expect to receive the services you promise - case closed. Customers don't care if you're short on cash, stressed out, overworked, or yo-yoing between missions statements and projects. As a customer, I shouldn't care one single bit how the Scnvgr team feels (as a programmer, yes I have empathy, but not as a customer).
- stickfigure 15y ago
  There's no indication in the original article that they gave Scvngr any money. From all appearances, the OP only qualifies as "Everyone Else".