Mustang Parts
   Carrying Saleen wheels and Bullitt wheels.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Changes In The (Autoblogging) Landscape

When I started doing this, there were a few intrepid auto bloggers, pounding away in obscurity.

Then AOL bought Autoblog, and made it into a press release firehose. Jalopnik tries hard to keep up, but does it with more flair, OfficeSpace style. Eric of AngryEngineer was seduced by the dark side ("Jedi mind tricks don't work on me, only money") and joined Autoblog, wrote some kickass how-to articles, then disappeared.

Joe over at MyFordDreams, apparently worn down by his beloved Ford's inability to gain traction, slowed down to a trickle and then stopped. Now Carpundit has thrown in the keyboard, with the mysterious sign off "I am done with this blog. Blogging is over for me; three years was enough. Bye.". Automuse, perhaps the only female autoblogger, is very slow, but might still be going.

On the bright side, we now have Mark Tapscott, who took over the Carnival of Cars duties, and who actually gets on TV every now and then. Keep it up, Mark! And Pete De Lorenzo of AutoExtremist still throws it down weekly, pulling no punches.

Blogging is actually a lot of work, if you want to say something you think is your own, and don't want to sound stupid--although I can't claim to avoid that consistently. It's easy to repackage a news story from the Detroit News or a press release from Isuzu, harder to come up with a coherent commentary on what it means.

Do you have an opinion? Why don't you try your hand? We need more real bloggers, guys who sit in their basements in furry slippers at 2:00am trying to shout some common sense at the people in the private jets.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm still blogging Saabs!! Does that count? :-)

Anonymous said...

Swade - it counts, and Trollhattan Saab is a fantastic site. A regular visit for me.

Anonymous said...

Eventually people give up when there is no profit involved. Personal satisfaction only feeds you for so long.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, d! Glad to hear it.

FWIW, I've got mostly just the majors on my feed reader and they've all stayed put. The minors I've got are mostly Saab-related and 90% of those have stayed put as well.

I’ve Seen Things You People Wouldn’t Believe said...

I've recently started blogging on Formula One and even that can be a pain to keep up with. That's why I'm not trying to keep up witha daily feeds; which are better handled by the big boyd such as ITV-F1.com and grandprix.com.

Anonymous said...

I'm still blogging over at www.ifitsgotanengine.com

Dorri

Brian Vermette said...

I'm still blogging weekly over at my blog too, its hard, but its also rewarding, plus its on my passion.

http://www.racedriven.com

By the way, I was shocked to see Carpundit stop blogging so suddently too as well as Joe at MyFordDreams.

It's almost like, blog for a year or two and it becomes a been there done that sort of deal like Myspace or other sites like that.

See Yeah and lol.

Anonymous said...

One solution may be guest bloggers to share the load and present a diversity of knowledge and opinions.

Anonymous said...

Hi, just wanted to say I'll be back. Yes things at Ford are sad and I've been discouraged, but MyFordDreams, has been important to me. I realize now that I overextended myself and then went through a blog depression. But I'm not killing it yet.

Look for me in the fall. I'll be back, not as much as I was in the begining, but I love doing it and can't see stopping forever.

I just saw CarPundit's blog, that's sad. Also Bob of CarsCarsCars hasn't posted since July.

Thanks for the mention,
Joe
BigFordFan (still) at
MyFordDreams 2

Fast Driving Chick said...

Hello, hello! I'm an Australian female, I've wanted to start up a car blog for sometime and have finally done it! You'll find me @
http://fastdrivingchick.blogspot.com/

I'm not going to be shy about my opinions, I like any make of car that performs well and looks good...

So drop by and have your say.
Thanks :)

The Angry Engineer said...

I haven't disappeared; it's just that work is nuts (kinda strange for a Michigan-based company, I'll admit). Given the choice between spending my tiny amount of free time writing about cars or working on them, I'll take working.

Look for more output sometime this fall.

MF said...

Found your blog thru http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/ . Thanks for some insight on the state of auto blogging. I was wondering about the fire hose pace of autoblog postings. Now I know!

I'm really trying to get my site going. Still working on design and content. But with a full time job, tendinitis, life in general, and no fuzzy slippers, it's hard to do! Help a brother out!

Drive Safe :)
The FREQ
AutoFREQ.com

MF said...

Still blogging. I changed my site name from autofreq to motorfoot.

Would like to see more frequent Auto Prophet posts!

Drive Safe!

MF
http://www.motorfoot.com