Ryan Opaz of http://www.catavino.net is moderating a panel on “Social Media Brand Future: New Technologies, New Media, and Publishing” with Esteban Cabezas, Marcio Ferreira, and Evelyn  Resnick.

It’s a time of disruption, certainly, as marketing professionals and the products they represent try to find their way in a topsy-turvy world where they no longer get to tell consumers what to think about a product and what to do. Consumers can find out for themselves and expect to be part of a conversation. But how can, how will this all play out?

With help from folks like Ryan Opaz who is bridging the gap by organizing events like the EWBC, suggests Esteban Cabezas of the Wine Academy of Spain. And more people like him (and Esteban too!). We have to get personal, he also says. And that can be uncomfortable for businesses.

Consumers go to the net looking for help in finding find their wine nirvana. Wine bloggers help them do this, points out a woman in the audience.

What’s the role of the wine writer versus the role of the wine blogger? Both are “publishing.”

Big debate raging on who is  a professional wine blogger and what that might mean.

As Jo Diaz put it in a tweet, “wineries are having a hard time making sense of all of this media power. Who owns the rights to tell consumers what they’ll like?”

Check out @wineblog.org which is Jo Diaz on twitter for more of her tweets about this session and others. She’s a great tweeter and caught some of the finer points of today’s discussion. She’s also blogging from the conference so go to Jo Diaz’s blog what she’s seeing and saying!