Alcoholic Beverages, Beers, Beverage, Brewing, Drinks, Events, Online

Beer Universe Launches in Alpha

Beer Universe Launches! Beer Universe, Inc. (Beer Universe or the “Company”) is a new social media / e-commerce website that revolutionizes the beer marketplace and community for beer enthusiasts of all ages (over 21, of course). Beer Universe provides an unrivaled online destination for beer enthusiasts and a solution to all of their beer related needs. Through these offerings, Beer Universe is able to provide users with exposure to new brands as well as greater knowledge about their favorites – thus creating a medium to obtain more aptitude about the universe of beer.

The Company was founded in September 2007 and has been funded by the employees ever since. The company officially was incorporated in December 2008.

Beer Universe, Inc.
Chicago, IL 60657

Key Facts
o Founded: September 2007
o Incorporated: December 2008
o Employees: 4
o Status: Private

Product Highlights
o Beer, Bar, Brewery Profiles
o Groups / Forums
o Beer Recommendations
o Beer / Beer Related Articles
o Biweekly Newsletter
o Beer of the Week
o Universal Third Party Store

Differentiators
o Points Store for users
o Beer of the week provides new beers
from breweries across the country
o Similar beers and recommended beers
give a tailored experience to all users
o Dynamic ratings across the site
enhance the user experience
o Friends can publicly “owe” a beer to
others on the site

Initial Points Levels
o Beer Novice — 0 points
o Beer Amateur — 5,000 points
o Beer Drinker — 12,500 points
o Beer Explorer — 25,000 points
o Beer Connoisseur — 65,000 points
o Beer Aficionado — 140,000 points

Market Overview
The Beer industry landscape has undergone significant change in the past several years. Beer Universe’s market is being driven by growth in the craft brewing segment, which is expanding between 13% – 15% per year, and grew more than 20% in 2007. Similar to other industries, breweries are allocating increasing amounts of their marketing budgets to online or emerging media, which from a macro perspective is growing at approximately 20% annually, amounting to $29 billion in 2008, and is expected to grow to $40 billion in 2010.

Beer Universe provides a number of products for its user base, including:

Beer, Bar, Brewery Profiles
Information on other sites is often cluttered and difficult to sort
through. Beer Universe’s user interface was designed to eliminate this problem for our users. The Company is driven via user generated content – the more the users contribute the better the site gets!

Groups / Forums
Staying true to it’s social networking components, Beer Universe has built groups / forum capabilities. As soon as you register on Beer Universe you can peruse our forums and join groups to start a healthy discussion on beer!

Beer Recommendations
Beer Universe helps users put together beers they love by an initial
survey and subsequent ratings. The more beers you rate the better Beer Universe can help you!

Beer / Beer Related Articles
Articles with RSS feeds allow Beer Universe to help its users stay up to date with market information. Also, Beer Universe often has guest writers who share their own unique perspectives on beer!

Biweekly Newsletter
The Company’s Biweekly Newsletter highlights industry news and information and is distributed to breweries / informed consumers!

Beer of the Week
Beer Universe seeks out the best beers across the country and the world to promote to our users in order to expand their horizons. From a classic premium lager to a Belgium ale – Beer Universe provides variety on a weekly basis!

Universal Store
The Company’s universal store is comprised of products from a variety of vendors. Consumers can shop for any beer related products they want in a single location!

The Big Question: How Do Points Work?
Beer Universe’s points system creates an incentive for users to frequently use our platform. The Company has put together a system that allows users to benefit greatly from their continued use of the site. Users earn points through:

  • Adding a beer / bar / brewery
  • Writing reviews over 25 words
  • Writing quality reviews
  • Creating a group
  • Joining a group
  • Joining a quality group
What does this really mean? Beer Universe gives users points if they add a beer, bar or brewery to the system. (Beer Universe has not currently included ways for users to edit any of these in the current database, but this will be added in the near future.) In addition, users are incentivized to write reviews on beers, bars or breweries greater than 25 words. For each review a users adds to the Company’s system, they will receive 50 points. Reviews that are ranked by others as being Helpful will earn the author an additional 50 points.Beer Universe has also built incentives around Groups. The system buckets users in groups and treats each individual group as a user. Once a group reaches a minimum threshold of reviews, they will ALL receive points that will be distributed to all the members. In addition, if the group writes quality reviews – they will receive bonus points for these same reviews. Leaders of all these groups will earn a bonus for starting highly successful groups.

All point allocations to users are subject to change from time to time.

We really hope you enjoy using Beer Universe.
Your Choice. Your Beer. Drink Up.

For more information, please visit http://www.beer-universe.com.

Via EPR Network
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