Scanning the Auto Blogosphere

Stingray Concept

This week I had a lot of fun looking for great stuff to highlight on other auto blogs, in part because some of what I found clearly pointed out a variety of blogging strategies, some of which we’ve tried here.

One strategy some use to provoke comments is to adopt a stance that’s so outrageous, readers will wonder whether you’re crazy, but (you hope) feel compelled to tell you why and how you’re totally wrong. Robert Farago at The Truth About Cars might really believe the Corvette must die, but building an auto-blog story saying so around a photo of the brand-new Stingray concept (above), which is neither a Corvette nor a production car, and closing it with a hypothetical farewell letter from Rick Wagoner probably won’t win him too many fans next time he visits a bar to watch NASCAR.

Another popular blogging strategy is to take full advantage of a web browser’s multimedia capabilities. Kevin Gordon at Autosavant put three videos into his piece on GM’s viability-plan press conference on Tuesday, the first of which is almost an hour of Wagoner and a couple of other execs speaking and answering questions at a podium. Did he really think that video would bring his story to life? Happily, he also included a two-and-a-half-minute video summary from the Associated Press. My favorite of his videos is the last, though - eight minutes of SNL spoofing the bailout hearings.

The New York Times, which earned its “grey lady” nickname by placing more emphasis on words than pictures, also works to take advantage of the web’s more interactive capabilities and recently posted a slide show of hybrid and electric vehicles. Most aren’t available yet, of course, including the Aptera, which we’ve mentioned in the past.

Another recent slide show should appeal to anyone who enjoys contemplating an $8,200 oil change and tune-up (those were Canadian dollars, though). Jalopnik’s photos of a Lamborghini Diablo’s V12 getting ripped apart, cleaned up, and re-assembled left me impressed, but also very glad I’ll never have to deal with that sort of engine.

Bloggers often like to play keyword games, trying to figure out what combination of words will bring the most visitors to their site via search engines. But of course the Internet offers an unending selection of stories featuring incredibly unlikely combinations of keywords. Tony O’Kane at the Motor Report managed to work all of these words into a recent story headline: McDonald’s, fries, EV charging stations.

And as any blogger knows, once you publish an email link, all bets are off as to what sort of stuff you’ll find in your inbox every day. Just this morning I received an email asking if CarGurus would support a new online photography gallery, which is hosting a show of car photography until the end of February. I’ll confess to finding this particular gallery much smaller than I expected, but it does contain a few great images, particularly for fans of pre-gas-crisis American cars. Take a look.

Anything you’d like to see get more - or less - coverage here on the CarGurus Blog?
Let me know.

-Steve Halloran

Related posts:

• Eight people have been killed and 141 injured after a devastating 200-car ...
• LoneStar Harley-Davidson: Big, Bad Truck
• Full Specs and Official Photos of the 2008 Honda Accord Sedan and Coupe!!
• Six Degrees of Automotive Separation: Auburn, Indiana