I don’t really know what “Web 2.0” is, but I’ll bet this site is part of it.

YourBeers Beer Guide

It is, very simply, a place to rate beers. Anyone can join, add a beer, or three, or a hundred, and rate them. You can also comment on them, post in the forums, and look through the data in any number of ways.

Their “About Us” page says:

Your Beers is a web 2.0 social networking site for beer enthusiasts. It allows individuals to discover new types of beer and to share their favorites with the world.

The site uses AJAX, which all of the cool Web 2.0 apps use nowadays, making using it dead simple. The interface is clean and easy to use.

It looks like it launched in the latter half of 2006 and never really got significant traction. Sadly, it appears to be foundering. The last couple of messages in the forums are spam and messages in all are rather sparse.

Competing against such well-established heavyweights as Beer Advocate and RateBeer probably accounts for much of that. It’s your typical “chicken-and-egg” conundrum. The site won’t be compelling until it has a good database of information. It won’t get that information until people sign up and add it. People won’t sign up for the site until it has a good database of information.

I think it could be worthwhile, though. It’s much simpler than its competition, and isn’t saddled (yet) with the politics and cliques of long-established community members. It also doesn’t try to be anything more than a place for people to rate beers and share. That’s not a knock against them, or anyone else; Sometimes, to me, doing one thing and doing it well is the best way to go.

Update (10-May-2008): The site appears to have been abandoned. There is little more content than when I first posted this, and now the forums are rife with spam. The site has been abandoned by its owners. I can no longer recommend it at all.

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