If you’ve read some of my blog posts from earlier this year, you might have come to the conclusion that I’m starting to dance on the grave of the traditional car magazine, but you’d be wrong. While I’m a big believer in blogs and online car mags (I’ve started writing some myself) I still enjoy picking up a magazine and flicking the pages, before settling down for a good read. But I’ve been struggling to put into words just what it is that means that one car magazine should survive, while another will not. Then I found this really good post by Rex Hammock, a long time publishing CEO in the USA. In his article, he writes about how blogs and magazines can co-exist and the differences between the two and how they can work together.
His point number three that hits the note for me is entitled “No one will ever collect National Geographic.com”. To quote his words,
“The magazines we love are not merely things we read and enjoy; they are expressions of who we are. We display them on coffee tables and desks the way people wear designer labels on clothes or purchase one model of car over another. People collect magazines, trade them and display them on decorative racks or in frames hung on the wall. Magazines provide us with mementos of our life’s journey. They allow us to savor our passions and save special moments. The magazines we love are so important to us, they make us feel guilty to consider throwing them away.”
And he’s right. Being the geek I am, I still have iconic titles such as a copy of Autosport on the week that Enzo Ferrari died and a great Cars and Car Conversion issue simply called “Ayton Senna, Rally Driver”. You’ll know the one if you’ve been around cars long enough.
So yes, I’m still a fan of car magazines, indeed nice, thick, well produced magazines in general, not just about cars. I’ll be writing again soon about some of the magazine / website hybrid business models that look like they deserve to survive and hopefully get some comments from their creators about where they see it going.
No doubt you’ll have an opinion on what a good car mag’s website should be all about, chime in below with your comments.