Cyril Penn, Editor-in-Chief of Wine Business Monthly, will provide the opening keynote at the 2020 Wine Media Conference, scheduled for August 5 -7 in Eugene, Oregon.
Penn has spent almost 20 years in the wine industry as an editor at Wine Business Monthly and has spent his career engaged with the wine industry, professional wine writers, and bloggers.
“Wine bloggers and independent writers have been important to me in my role at Wine Business Monthly since the beginning,” explains Penn about his interest in bloggers. “We aggregate content and even now aggregate content from blogs and independent sites.”
Wine blogging has changed over the past 12 years and the conference has changed with it, rebranding from the Wine Bloggers Conference to the Wine Media Conference. There are still writers who were some of the original wine bloggers but many attending the WMC now are much newer.
“I believe all the lines have blurred”, states Penn. “WordPress is no longer a blogging platform but one that drives many websites. Bloggers often write for publications and professional writers often blog. There is not much difference anymore and what matters is the quality of the writing.”
Penn will be speaking on Wine Writers and the Wine Industry. He will address how he evaluates wine writers whether bloggers or otherwise; tips for how wine writers can present themselves and their work more credibly; how wine writers impact the industry; and what changes we might see in the future of wine media.
The Wine Media Conference is now in its 13th year and is expecting approximately 250 attendees, ranging from wine bloggers to professional wine writers, from media agencies to winery marketing staff.