Gary Vaynerchuk, known as the “Sommelier of Social Media” and for his face videos, is the host of Wine Library TV and COO of Wine Library in Springfield, NJ. His new book, “101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight and Bring Thunder to Your World”, prints all his energy and passion for wine. Gary will also be the keynote speaker at Affiliate Summit 2009 in Las Vegas.

Shawn: What do you think is the most important social networking site?

Gary: I’d say it’s neck-to-neck between Twitter and Facebook, depending on how you use things. I think Facebook has a lot more power and I could really go after Twitter and eliminate them by creating a Facebook mobile device that looks a lot like it.

But Twitter or something like Twitter. If Twitter can’t scale, whether it’s FriendFeed or Pownce or something we don’t know about right now, it will be the future, because mobile is the future.

Shawn: What do you think of FriendFeed?

Gary: I haven’t dabbled in it long enough to reply, but I know a lot of people are enjoying the conversations linked there. FriendFeed has a very legitimate opportunity to take over the market. I think they will be one of the places.

People realize that Twitter has scalability issues and FriendFeed is probably working to compete with them as we speak.

Shawn: Why do you use Viddler to embed in Wine Library TV, instead of the Revision3 version?

Gary: Viddler has been good to me. We have been in a relationship for two years. When my company started using it two years ago, instead of YouTube, it was a risky move, because in theory there was so much more to be gained from YouTube.

But they’ve been great to me, they’ve had great service and I believe in the guys there so I want to support them.

Shawn: Do you have any good stories you can share from your tour of the book?

Gary: I signed a guy’s chest the other day. It would have been great if it was a girl, but take what you can. There is nothing so crazy that it is not so humiliating to see a hundred people come to your book signing in Seattle, Maryland and Portland.

Shawn: I saw the Wine Library TV episode when you were in Boston. Was it difficult to work with a Patriots bucket?

Gary: That’s why I didn’t spit it out. Then I had to drink the wine. That’s what made it difficult. It was a really fun time.

Shawn: Since you talk about the importance of building a personal brand, which player from the New York Sack Exchange (defensive line of the New York Jets in the early 1980s) do you think created the best personal brand?

Gary: Without exception Mark Gastineau. When I was leaving New York, a lot of people knew Gastineau. Of course, I loved the niceties of a tough player like Klecko, but the fact remains that Gastineau was able to create the biggest personal brand.

Shawn: Do you have any advice for people trying to build a personal brand through social media?

Gary: Authenticity, honey. Be a RAT. Be real, authentic and transparent. And know what you are talking about. That means going to whatever niche is necessary.

So if you think you know a lot about basketball, but realize you know more about the Houston Rockets, go for it. And if you know more about Hakeem Olajuwon than you do about the Houston Rockets, then you can do Hakeem Olajuwon TV or Hakeem Olajuwon’s blog.

I think people need to be champion of their subdomain, and I think people need to go to their lowest common denominator to achieve it.

Shawn: One last thing … what do you see in your future after the life of wine ends?

Gary: Then it will be the life of the Jets. I want to buy the Jets. That is where I want to go. There will probably be a stop in the middle. I just don’t know what that is, yet, but I don’t know if the life of wine can reach the $ 2 billion I need to buy the Jets, but that’s what I’m going to do.

Shawn: Meanwhile, are you going to get a box at the stadium?

Gary: Yes maybe. I do not know. I’m so focused on not wasting funds along the way, so I feel like those two hundred thousand could cost me.

See Gary at http://tv.winelibrary.com/ and http://garyvaynerchuk.com/.