Autoblog from yesterday on the left, KickingTires from Monday on the right.
February 14, 2007
December 29, 2006
Ruining Auto Show Season
I know I rarely post on this blog, but since it is the place for my media musings I figured it was appropriate. It used to be the auto show season was a fun time of year, when everyone saw new cars for the first time. From the media’s standpoint it was always a drag because it was so hectic to cover everything in such a limited time frame. To help them out the automakers provided information and photos in advance and put an embargo on the information so no publication could get a leg-up on a competitor.
The concept of the embargo has gone the way of the dodo and so has much of the fun and mystery surrounding the car shows themselves. First, let me say I’m not writing this rant as sour grapes because the competition has “beaten” us on stories. Kicking Tires and Cars.com isn’t about the enthusiast reader. It is about the car shopper, the people that are actually viewing the car shows to plan a future purchase, and yes they like concept cars too. The Cars.com auto show pages are some of the most heavily trafficked all year so it really doesn’t matter if we have the Chevy Malibu up the same day as a big enthusiast web site. This post also should not be seen as an official Cars.com stance, I’m writing it as a media professional who has some background in covering car shows on the web,.
That said, for the enthusiast I would think this trend of one leak after another days and even weeks before the auto shows is a bit annoying. Davey over at Jalopnik hit the nail on the head with his embargo leak parody. I think there is embargo leak overdosing going on. I’m going to absolve Jalopnik, Autoblog and even Left Lane News of most of the wrongdoing because they’re following the tide. Most of the blame rests on the AutoWeeks, Edmunds InsideLine and WindingRoads of the web world and all the buff books minus Automobile, who I guess is so far behind the times they don’t even have an issue on stands yet. The other major faulty party is the automaker who hasn’t adapted to the web either, even though they’re starting to spend a lot more money advertising money there.
The automakers are setting these embargo dates, often at ridiculous times like Christmas Eve, and expecting the publications to bend over backwards to promote their products. That’s mistake number one. The other big mistake is they give the magazines an advance on the information so they can sell more issues on the newsstand, theoretically trumping the interwebs. Well, fans of Jalopnik probably aren’t surfing Caranddriver.com all day long. They have their Jalopnik feed and when Jalopnik sees an AutoWeek or C&D break an embargo they follow and the reader gets it on Jalopnik (or Autoblog) often with better web presentations, so the magazine is still losing out.
The reader is also suffering from a lack of anticipation, excitement and is probably disoriented about how much is left out there to see and when he or she should expect to see it.
Unlike others I have a solution to this problem.
May 19, 2006
Riding to Grand Rapids in Style
When people ask what I do and I tell them I write about cars they kind of scratch their head and wonder what that means. It was easier to say I covered music and got free CDs and concert tickets when that was my beat. Now I get free cars…for a week…to test.
Usually, I schedule vehicles when they’re available and never get the right car for when a road trip comes up. But today as I head out to Grand Rapids, for yet another Pearl Jam show, I’ll be driving the BMW 650i shown at right. The thing is sweet. I’ll report back on how the ride and show went tomorrow or Sunday.
January 31, 2006
New column on mph-online
Last week we launched a new column at mph-online. It's called mph Rumors and is an automotive take off of a gossip column. There's nothing really like it in the space, unless you call certain blogs gossip sites. We try and cull the various rumors overheard among the staff and put it together in one digestible piece.
Both Jalopnik and DetroitWonk liked it. We should have another one up later this week.
