Good news and bad news on the automotive media front. The good news is that AROnline has had a number of offers by individuals and groups to keep the website online, at least as an archive.
Editor Keith Adams (2023b) wrote in a recent Facebook post, “It comes down to this — if I can find the right home for the site, a community-based solution, or a site sponsor, and on the understanding I won’t be pressured into constantly generating new content to feed some ravenous algorithm, it can carry on in a more static form than it currently does.”
I assume that Adams’s (2023b) reference to a “ravenous algorithm” relates to the relentless pressure of ad-funded websites to pump out a constant flow of new content to maintain an adequate number of page clicks.
As an aside, Adams (2023a) previously wrote that the “final straw that broke the camel’s back” was a recent claim for copyright payments for some images that AROnline had mistakenly run. Some other auto history websites that post copyrighted materials without permission may be similarly vulnerable.
In summing up the value of AROnline, Adams could just as easily be speaking for other automotive history websites that someday face closure: “The community built up around the site, and information that’s been unearthed over the years, is far too good to be lost to time.”
AROnline still represents a wake-up call
AROnline may have dodged a bullet, but it still represents a wake-up call for the auto history community. Over the last few years more than one American website has questioned its future. For example, Ate Up With Motor has discussed pulling the plug (Severson; (2020a, 2020b).
To preserve content, what is arguably most needed is for a major auto history association to provide an easily accessible home for websites that would otherwise go offline.
Just as importantly, the group could also make it easier for the next generation of auto history writers to get their start by sponsoring a Substack-style service that allows them to gain visibility for their work and monetize it through paid subscriptions (go here for further discussion).
I would invite readers who are involved with a major auto history association to bring up this topic with their leaders. What would it take for, say, the Society of Automotive Historians to become a web-based hub for writers old and new?
Jalopnik’s publisher talks about using AI content
In the bad news department, Jalopnik’s parent company, G/O Media, has openly discussed using artificial intelligence software to create content summaries as well as entire articles.
G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller reportedly said that AI won’t be used to replace staff. However, one staff member interviewed by Vox writer Peter Kafka (2023) said that the decision is “a not-so-veiled attempt to replace real journalism with machine-generated content. G/O’s MO is to make staff do more and more and publish more and more. It has never ceased to be that. This is a company that values quantity over quality.”
G/O Media Inc. is a holding company that owns a variety of media outlets such as Jalopnik, The Onion and Gizmodo. Several of the outlets have been sold or closed over the last few years (Wikipedia, 2023). We have previously discussed the dangers of Jalopnik being run by a private-equity firm (go here).
I offer this heads up in case you find that a Jalopnik article sounds trite or inaccurate. That may not reflect the journalistic caliber of current staff but rather the cold hand of publisher-imposed AI.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Adams, Keith; 2023a. “Announcement: The time has come. . .” AROnline. Posted Oct. 30.
- ——; 2023b. Facebook post Nov. 19 at 4:10 a.m.
- Kafka, Peter; 2023. “You’re going to see more AI-written articles whether you like it or not.” Vox. Posted July 18.
- Severson, Aaron; 2020a. “Whatever Happened to Ate Up With Motor?” Ate Up With Motor. Posted Jan. 10.
- ——; 2020b. “Update Your Bookmarks.” Ate Up With Motor. Posted Feb. 17.
- Wikipedia; 2023. “G/O Media.” Page last edited Nov. 29.
My experience with the “ravenous algorithm” is that if you don’t keep up with the frequent changes in search engine algorithms and whatever they’re currently looking for (which changes), your traffic suffers. I ultimately gave up trying to maintain traffic to my site, and its traffic has declined to a fraction of what it used to be. The content people came to the site for, and that I created the site to provide, was always there. Human visitors did not demand that we keep changing how this content was served up. But the search engine algorithms did. It was a ridiculous situation, and I got very tired of it. Keith might have experienced something similar.
I must admit that I haven’t consistently stayed on top of how algorithms change. On occasion I’ve experimented with using what I assume are current best practices and those articles have ranked pretty well. But mostly I just do what I think the subject matter deserves.
The main thing I’ve noticed is that Indie Auto’s traffic seems to be heavily linked to frequency of posts. The sweet spot seems to be four posts per week. That creates a predicament because I write to be read but there’s a certain point where quantity eclipses quality (given that I’m a solo operation).
I get why some other auto history websites will pump out lots of short — and decidedly superficial — stories, but it is still frustrating when that is considered “quality” automotive history. To me it’s dumbing down the product to the point where it becomes vapid infotainment.