June 2008

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www.OnCars.com launched May 19 appears to have the right elements in place to achieve its goals of moving cars, moving stories and moving audiences with broadcast quality content on the Internet: a veteran, talented content team, an Emmy-winning production house and a portal already drawing an average 6 million visitors a month. 

Paul Pfanner, erstwhile publisher of Sports Car and Race Car magazines and now head of Pfanner Communications is CEO of ONCARS.com.  His long-time associates from those ventures, all steeped in the automotive world, include executive producer and creative director Rick Graves, publishing partner Bill Sparks, who came up with the OnCars concept and editors Emile Bouret and Jeremy Shaw.  All of the footage is shot on location in Orange County, Calif. or in Pfanner Communications studios there.  The final production is done by Terry Lingner’s Lingner Production Group in Indianapolis which has been producing top-rated automotive /motorsports television shows for two decades.  The third partner is Jay Penske (yes, Roger’s son), CEO of Mail.com Media Corp. whose Mail.com offers free email service and a growing content network of 253 channels – OnCars being named provider for the portal’s new Automotive Channel.

Wooden Horse (May 25) describes Japanese Nostalgic Car as a publication for collectors, enthusiasts, and drivers of vintage Japanese automobiles. In addition to articles about Japanese car shows and the history behind various Japanese vehicles, the magazine includes a buyer’s guide, product guide, readers’ rides, a calendar of events, and editorials.  Benjamin Hsu is the editor of this quarterly that is currently available by subscription only. ben@japanesenostalgiccar.com

Joylon Law advises of his blog, www.Todaysautonews.com.  He describes it as, “a daily listing of articles from newspapers, magazines and other blogs on the topic auto product news.” . . . Sean Kane writes that The Safety Record is “the inside baseball” of motor vehicle safety.  Contact him for more info at Safety Research & Strategies, Inc. 340 Anawan St., Suite 200 Rehoboth, MA 02769  Email sean@safetyresearch.net . . . www.TrueDelta.com uses owner surveys to provide “apples-to-apples” reliability and pricing comparisons says the website’s developer, Michael Karesh.

Car Pub Insider blogs about automotive magazines with a concentration on publishers’ online activities.  Subtitled The Future of AutomobileLogo: Car Publisher Insider Magazines, over 30 posts describe challenges at the leading pubs, how the online tsunami is threatening print, and the effect of shifting consumer patterns on the publishing industry.  CPI includes a unique index to 240 publications with circ numbers, for selected titles.  Publisher Eric Killorin advises that reader contributions are valued . . . . . YouTube has launched a “Citizens News” channel,  joining CNN’s Ireport initiative to utilize the phenomenal growth of citizen journalism but without CNN’s background in filtering and verifying what is reported.

Stewart Berg and Tony Kuhn’s Ultimate Garages www.Garages.Net, begun about a year ago, already has competition, Garage Style Magazine, launched by publisher-editor Don Weberg.  His is the first print magazine on the subject and, like Berg and Kuhn, is designed to be the resource for amazing garages with technical how-to articles, product reviews and buyer’s guide, says Weberg. He also plans to include airplane hangers and boat houses in  future issues of the quarterly.  In case you were wondering how much information on garages the market can bear, Weberg reports,  “In 2006 homeowners spent roughly $2.5 billion on remodeling garages.  Also that 15 percent of new homes built in the U.S. have room for 3 or more cars.”

 Autowriters.Com invites readers to submit their own Clog
(Online Column).  Your reward: a byline and an audience of your peers.  All submissions are acknowledged, queued
and used at the editor’s discretion. 


In addition to producing his weekly automotive TV magazine, Ohama Road for 255 weeks and still counting and a separate weekly auto review for KITV4 ABC affiliate in Honolulu, Hawaii auto impresario Bill Maloney writes a self-syndicated weekly column, “A Bunch of Maloney” that brings a light touch, insight and a little fun to folks who like to read about cars. Contact him at billmaloney15@aol.com if you would like to consider his column for your publication..


A BUNCH OF MALONEY
THE HMMMMM? ABOUT HYBRIDS

Rival car company market researchers and their soothsayers have been busy blowing holes in the rationale (and high pricing) for many popular hybrid cars that are enjoying record sales.

Picture: Bill Maloney, Syndicated ColumnistA research firm in Portland, Oregon and an editor of Car And Driver magazine have gone to great strides to seemingly unmask the efficiency fallacy about two prominent import hybrids. These two respected entities call these green cars models that make a fashion statement. They even provided stats.

Would you believe a big Chevy Tahoe SUV has a lower energy cost-per-mile than a small import hybrid. Which is $3.25 cost-per-mile while the Tahoe sports a CPM of $2.94.  The math, they say, is simple.  The Tahoe has a lifetime expectancy of 268,000 miles while the compact import will last 109,000 miles.

The CNW market research firm from the northwest along with the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) say the little hybrids are a way for some individuals…can you say Leonardo… to make an environmental statement.

It’s said that a car is no longer a car when it’s a hybrid. It’s a statement. There are high visibility dudes who like to drive statements.

Cameron Diaz, Ed Begley, Jar, and the two guys who own Google, who the CNW study says quote “don’t know ‘dick’ about the environment.”  These are people of the conspicuous consumption class who are into whole foods, wild oats/sprouts and keep Trader Joes extremely profitable. They don’t drink Jim Beam and prefer Grey Goose and of course their home away from home is Starbucks and its designer coffee. Researchers say these folks are willing to pay to display their moral superiority and virtue.

Editor of C&D Patrick Bedard states that the small hybrids don’t save enough gas money to justify their initial high price.  The buyers motivation is largely personal enlightenment re global warming.  A feel good thing.  So that’s the argument from the “have nots”…everybody has an agenda.

So when buying a new car and you’re into saving the Whales and trees do your homework.  Performance or posturing?


 Tom-Tom rants, raves, rambles and ruminations are volunteered and express the opinions of the writer.

“In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down — my opinion. Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form. . . . Also in the world of 10 years from now, there are going to be far more producers of content than exist today. We’ve already started to see that certainly in the online world, but we’ve just scratched the surface.”
 Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Chief Executive quoted in a
 Washington Post interview by Peter Whoriskey June 5

 
 “We are going to be swamped with a tsunami of information soon and enabling people to navigate it is going to be one of the big problems of the next decade.”
 Martin Moore director of the UK’s Media Standard Trust,
 Media Digest
Issue 136

 
 ”Aggregation, not as a sidelight but as more of a focus, is a mission change for media, and there’s a case for it, to be sure. Time and attention have limits, but the universe of content, it seems, does not. So finding a way to quickly and cleanly deliver relevant news is important. ”
 Matthew Creamer, Advertising Age April 15, 2008
 
 “The idea that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing machines is not only built into the workings of the Internet, it is the network’s reigning business model as well. The faster we surf across the Web—the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us  advertisements. Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.”
 “Is Google Making Us Stupid? “ Nicholas Carr, July/August Atlantic Monthly

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