What can culture|garage do for you? : culture|garage

What can culture|garage do for you?

March 19, 2008

Posted by Chris

Tags: site stuff

This started as a nugget of an idea, a cool way to do a thesis project. I wanted to get all irreverent on your ass. Bring you new, odd, bizarre stories. But beyond that, I wanted to build a community (the forum component) where people can share stories, pictures, etc.

I wanted to act as a channel to deliver your amateur motorsports, car events and stories and elevate them to a broader audience. Submissions are starting to roll in more regularly, we have received some killer shots (specifically, thanks Ricky for your 24 hours of Daytona photos).

Let me know what you are thinking and read my disappointment
I don’t want to become an autoblog or a Jalopnik (both of which are fantastic sites), I wanted to focus more on contributing submissions and still maintain some quick overview of what’s going on in the industry.

Seeing as this started out small just a few short months ago and we are now doing product reviews and have made a few press events, I really want to cement the site’s path. So what do you want? What do we have that you like? What do we not have that you want to see?

Things I am disappointed with:
The forum, I wanted this to be the big component of the site, where stories floated to the top and the cream made the front blog page. But somehow, the blog won out in popularity and usage of the forum has dwindled.

Time constraints, I have a career. And culture|garage is not it. Additionally, I am in school for an M.A. I simply don’t have the ability to update the site enough (i.e. we are only getting 3-6 posts a day), I have enlisted various contributors, but free stickers or a shirt can only keep you interested for so long. That being said, young Jim, does some kick ass articles, I am really going to hate the day when I get the call that he is graduating and getting a job that actually pays.

Diversity, myself and almost all of the contributors are skewed heavily towards imports (European and Asian) and we some times lack dialogue on the domestic front, again, luckily we have Jim to round us out a bit more.

ShareThis

Was it good for you? Subscribe to our articles.

Trackback from your own site

9 Responses to “What can culture|garage do for you?”

Jeff Says:
March 20th, 2008 at 8:03 am

I agree that we need to find a way to get people involved in the forum and keep them there. I’ve been trying to think of ideas to do this, but have come up short.

Also, it’d be great if we could find more people willing to contribute. This is one thing I really wish I could do more, but it’s just not my forte. I try whenever I see some news that looks new and fresh, but those have been few and far in between. I just don’t have the input to any automotive sources to bring anything that hasn’t been hashed and rehashed by every other auto blog out there.
JK Says:
March 20th, 2008 at 9:39 am

I’d gladly contribute anything I can regarding my projects and whatnot. But I’d question who would really want to read about my low budget, fairly boring garage endeavours. I’m not sure what order sort of niche I could fill, I have like ZERO subscriptions to any automotive publications right now (yeah, shame, shame, I know), and I don’t have the time to do any sort of comprehensive writing during the day.

I agree that its a bit disappointing that the forum seems to have fallen by the wayside, since if the point of the site was to have user/viewer interaction that would seemingly be the best place for it.
Chet Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 10:44 am

Ok, I’ll try to briefly highlight why I, personally, stopped using the Culture Garage forum. To put it simply: there are WAAAY too many forums and sub-forums on this site…I count 25 to be exact. Thats always been a huge pet peeve of mine, when car forums try to break down every single category of automotive interest into its own forum. Keep it simple, how about maybe 6 or 7 forums? (And I do realize that many of the forums are regional, but still…)

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say this, but I post on SEVERAL other car forums… way too many, in fact. And though I really wanted to add the c|g forum to my list of daily visits, it simply took too long to browse the new posts because of the excessive number of forums. Too many sub-forums, means too much time to browse them… and I just didn’t have the extra internet time to devote to it…
Ryan Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 11:03 am

Chet, you know there’s a “show new posts” button in the top right corner when you are logged in? I just use that and it will show when there are new ones, regardless of what forum they are placed in.
Chet Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 12:13 pm

Yea I know its there, most forums I’ve been on have it. Perhaps its my own loss, but I’ve just never really been that fond of that feature. I like my threads to be organized by category, just not OVER-organized. For instance, the Amateur and Professional Motorsport forums on c|g have a total of 16 threads combined, wouldn’t it be more simple/cleaner if it was just combined into a single “Motorsport” forum?

Topher is in the marketing field, and I’m a few months away from graduating with a Marketing degree. I’m sure this is basic to him, but the key to luring customers to your product is through “product differentiation”. I think that c|g has that part nailed down. Not only does it provide news on the automotive industry, but it also includes blurbs about fashion, good music, etc… things that the other Auto-News sites don’t. c|g manages to relate all of these other fields to the automotive industry, and thats what keeps me coming back…not the forums.

Topher, I understand your desire to make the forums more of a focus. But honestly, it seems hard to “differentiate” your forums from the billions of others on the interwebz. Since I have a limited amount of time I can spend surfing the web, the forums that I browse are going to be ones specific to the cars I own. That way, not only do I get my fill of the typical car-forum banter, but I also stay up-to-date on new products/reviews/mods relating to the car I drive.

One thing that the c|g forums have that some don’t is a wide variety of car enthusiasts, I agree. But what do these people have in common besides liking cars? I post on other sites that have a wide variety of enthusiasts, but the members of those sites still have something in common with each other… For instance, there are 3 local Autocross clubs in my area, and I frequent all of their forums. These sites fill my need for a “wide variety” of interests and opinions, but at the same time, I feel that I have something in common with the members: we race against each other.

One last thing to add to my novel… In trying to incorporate “all” types of cars, don’t alienate others. When your writer is openly degrading a particular car community (that I happen to be a part of), do you think I’m going to post a build thread for that particular car? I think not…
Bart Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 2:13 pm

Not every loves Honda Chet. :star:
Vin Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 2:57 pm

Chris, I hear ya man.

I am also in grad school (again), and I recently had to put my little soccer blog project on hiatus due to time constraints. (Hellooooo full time job + grad school.)

It was going well, too.

I also had/have a forum, and I’ve found that to be the most difficult component to cultivate and manage. Getting blog subscribers means drawing them in, and that represents a challenge in and of itself, but getting people to actively *sign up* for anything (forums included) is like convincing someone to get close enough to check your deodorant.

I am considering $hitcanning my forum for now to focus on the blog. After all, the comments make a blog a “community” of sorts anyway. You may consider doing the same.

As for the diversity between types of cars discussed, I really don’t see a problem with the variety on this site, although I have noticed that there’s an underlying current of Saab-centrism. (That’s weird, but it doesn’t bother me.) Keep on doing what you’re doing; it’s gotten the site this far, right?

Good luck.
-Vin

Good luck.
Jeff Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 4:23 pm

Vin,

The reason for the Saab-centrism is because the founding team all came together through owning Saabs. I think a large majority of our viewers are still from the various Saab communities we frequent.

We want as much diversity as we can get, and that is why we brought on Jim as a contributer, since he comes from a radically different background. Unfortunately, as most of us still share that common background, we are going to lean towards what we know, and what we believe those viewers are going to be most interested in. That’s why we really want invite anyone else out there interested in contributing to come forward and let us know. We will encourage and welcome anyone that can help fill in the gaps in our current skeleton crew.
Jeff Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 4:26 pm

Also, we would absolutely grateful to anyone who can help get our word out there to the multitude of different communities out there.

Muscle cars and antiques, imports and off-roaders. We want as many different groups and people on here as we can find.