Housekeeping: More, More, More!

by Tim Healey

Published: October 31st, 2022

Hey there! We start this week with some TTAC news.

You may remember that about a year, year and a half ago we changed our content strategy. We spent less time on news and more on longer posts that included more opinion and analysis. Without getting into specifics, the change was neither a success nor failure from the business side -- traffic held fairly steady for most of the time. From a content standpoint, I think there were times when it worked really well -- you got some really, really good analysis you wouldn't get elsewhere, as just one example -- but it also was tough letting some news stories slide since they seemed too "minor" for our new approach.

Now we have this sharp new look and we're looking to take advantage of it. So that means more content and some new features.

We'll be diving back into the news -- expect more news content on a daily basis. We're also going to add a few things. To wit:

There will be a used car of the day post every day. We'll be surfing our parent company's forums to bring you an interesting used car each day for your perusal.
We'll have a QOTD every day as opposed to "whenever one of us thinks of something good".
We'll have a weekly EV news recap.
We'll have a weekly video post, where we highlight a trending video related to the car world and this particular corner of it. We'll try to avoid, as much as possible, "clickbaity" types of content.
We'll still have traditional car reviews, but we'll also have some short-take reviews on cars that don't quite need a full review but have some interesting features that need highlighting.

Our current regular features -- Junkyard Find, Rare Rides, Abandoned History, Buy/Drive/Burn, TTAC Rewind, and Tech Tips -- will remain, though the frequency of some of those features will change. TTAC Throwback is on temporary hiatus while author Bryan Davis focuses on some other projects, but we hope it will return either later this year or after the new year.

We'll still also have op-eds, rants, feature stories, and the like.

In case you're curious, the staff roster isn't changing at this time. You'll be seeing familiar bylines going forward.

One last note -- we're still figuring out the when of some of these things. It will take a few weeks, probably, for us to settle into a groove concerning when each feature will appear. That said, Junkyard Find will still lead off our week, Tech Tips will remain on Fridays, and TTAC Rewind will remain a weekend feature.

Strap in -- starting Tuesday, Nov. 1, there's going to be a lot more TTAC in your life.

[Image: Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock.com]

Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by subscribing to our newsletter.

#Housekeeping #Ttac #Content #News #Moremoremore

Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

More by Tim Healey

Comments

Join the conversation

2 of 19 comments

BetterOne on Oct 31, 2022

Sounds like TTAC is rapidly running out of s*** to throw at the wall, hoping SOMETHING sticks...

Like Reply
Stellantis Guy on Oct 31, 2022

All these promises right before midterms. 😉

2 Reply

Recent Comments

Amwhalbi My 1972 Mercury Capri was my first stick shift car. God, I miss that thing. It was a blast to drive.
Vid169489471 The technology exists today to produce a variable color temperature (kelvin) LED lamp. It can vary from 2700k that soft orange look to 6500k the bright daylight with the bluish tint.Since everything in a late model car is computer controlled, it would be an easy task to write a few lines of code that enables your vehicle to not only dim down from hi to low beam but to shift color temp down to the 2700k range for oncoming traffic, then back up to 5000k once oncoming traffic has passed. For the operator it would be automatic and seamless. For older cars they could be retrofitted with LEDs that are 2700k on low beam and 5000k on hi beam. As far as standards, there could be a lumens max, and a minimum. Several States already have minimum lumen standards going back to the old incandescent bulbs. Why not update these to national standards.
Jam169859557 More regulation is needed for ALL vehicle lighting systems. [list=1][*]The lighting that is most blinding are the rapidly flashing red, blue and amber lights on emergency vehicles. The lights themselves are blinding, flashing so rapidly that it's impossible for even the sharpest eyes to adjust. What's worse, is the nature of the emergency requires a careful view of the area surrounding the emergency vehicle. There is something going on that needs to be seen. More flashing lights is not the solution.[/*][*]Brighter headlights need to be regulated. The tall riding vehicles do not need headlights positioned so high that they blind drivers in lower riding vehicles. And those heasdlights need to be aimed properly. When I first started driving my 2020 Subaru Outback, many drivers would flash their lights, hoping I would dim my lights. This stopped after I performed am easy adjustment that tilted the beam lower. Late model Subaru headlamps are designed with a sharp cutoff that project less glare above the hood line. When the headlights are properly aimed, other drivers are not blinded by the beam.[/*][*]Customized light assemblies make it more difficult to see the marker lights (tail lamps, turn signals and side marker lamps) that have been tinted. There are many municiple codes that prohibit this tinting, but these laws are seldom enforced.[/*][/list=1]Solutions: Tight controls on emergency vehicle lighting. In trying to make these vehicles more visible, a dangerous side effect is reducing the ability of drivers to see the surrounding perils.Headlight design regulations that reduce the height of the headlight assemblies. Just because a pickup truck has a hood that sits 4 feet abouve the pavement, it does not mean the headlights need to be so high. Owneres should maintain proper adjustments to their vehicle headlights.Establish and enforce regulation requiring a illumination standard be followed.
Stl170698708 as someone who hates big government, and their interference;but you can add me to the list of people that are blinded by the lights.unfortunately "the poop is out of the horse and no way is it going back in"They have had 5 years to make lights bigger, badder and brighter because in the vehicle work it is go big or go home!Trucks are the worst because so many people use them to express their dominance and that is big, big, big $$ both at the Original Purchase and in the Aftermarket world.If, we are so lucky to get some good government regulation on this it will also take some very good Court enforcement to get the aftermarket people with fines and lawsuits.Much like the EPA did with the Diesel Tuner Industry that felt emission regulations didn't apply to them.This is from someone that owns said pickup truck with the same bright headlights,but i only use the truck when I have too and always turn off the Fog lights when driving in traffic.
Art65765977 I saw a porsche 911 with the most amazing headlights from behind approaching the Sunshine skyway in Florida. The pattern was 108 degrees across sweeping the road like a broom. My brother and I were amazed. I don't know what it looked like from the front but i am sure it was better than American cars