Say hello to Wednesday as we reach the middle of the week. Who is getting unbelievably excited for Free Practice on Friday then? Yesterday we were discussing whether it was acceptable to leave a wedding early so you can watch qualifying. I say yes, how about you? Meanwhile, here are the other things we're talking about:
The Factbyte Factbox had a radical overhaul yesterday and finally completed the goal we had in mind for it since it debuted a year ago - live updates. There's more information about what we're trying to achieve, and what happened during the brief test last night on this post. Don't worry if you missed it, though, it'll be back plenty of times during the season!
It was a day for refreshing websites yesterday, as McLaren launched their new site, Williams had a fresh lick of paint, and Autosport introduced a new 2010 Season Guide. The new season preview edition of Grand Prix Plus emerged yesterday as well, so make sure you check that out if you haven't already. All good stuff that should keep you busy for a little while!
Whilst doing a bit of admin for F1 Big Picture, it occurred to us that we'd fallen into our trap of introducing concepts and not really telling anyone about them, so we decided that for 2010 we'd try and be a bit more transparent - or at least plug things more. This post over on F1 minute explains the pattern our Big Pictures take ahead of each race.
That should do it for now. There's more good stuff to come today, so we'll be keeping busy, but I will see you in the comments.
It has been weeks coming but finally US F1 have stopped operations and admitted they are not going to make it onto the grid in 2010. Although there is no direct quote from the team, there have been several tweets from the inside, and Autosport has the story:
AUTOSPORT understands that shortly before lunchtime, production manager Dave Skog informed those staff who had remained at the team during its recent troubles that they were being laid off.
Updated: Futher to the original story, Autosport have posted more information, this time from team boss, Ken Anderson.
Ken has pointed out that the team still have hopes for a 2011 entry to the grid and confirmed that operations have been put on hold at the factory.
"We are waiting for a reply from the FIA and are working with them. In the mean time, there is nothing for the employees to do, so we have told them to stop working on the current car until we have a decision."
The last day of January already! An entire month of 2010 has passed us by and we are staring down the barrel of February. We've also got two launches today, and some testing to preview. It's going to be a busy one! Meanwhile, Mr C and I are starting to feel better (thanks for covering yesterday, Mr C), so we're starting to catch up on some of the things we had planned this weekend. Here's some of the stuff we're talking about:
Despite forgetting that it was even on, we ended up being very interested in the Arctic Rally, and particularly how well Kimi Raikkonen got on. We covered the topic originally in an introductory thread, and summed up his performance over the two days in another post. I also spent a while collecting the best of the best pictures for an F1 Big Picture special.
I also wrote a post about Autosport's recent decision to provide the magazine as a digital subscription alongside the paper version. This is great news for us and means we can actually subscribe finally, and it's also good to see how many other magazines are starting to look at online solutions.
Pat W is keeping busy and participating in the 24 Hour Blogathon over on The Furious Wedge. Alongside the 24 Hours at Daytona, Pat and Allen plus a host of others will providing updates and entries as often as they can. I don't know how they're going to manage to stay awake, but good luck to all!
That's all for now. We may be recording another show this weekend, depending on our energy levels, but unfortunately it will be another non-live one, so the edited version will be along as soon as possible. I will see you in the comments.
A stack of paper magazines - the old way of doing things?
This week, F1 fans received some excellent, and forward-thinking, news from the fine folks at the publishing company Haymarket. A forum post appeared on Wednesday with an announcement of an announcement, but this time it was about something we've long been calling for.
The post, written by Autosport.com's Publishing Manager, read:
Following on from the trial during the postal strike of last year, and based on the overwhelmingly positive feedback it received, I can let you know that a digital version of AUTOSPORT will be launched next month.
There will be a formal announcement in due course, but the digital version will be free to existing magazine subscribers and we will offer it at a discounted price to Autosport.com PLUS subscribers.
We've been pushing for more and more in the way of online resources from publishers because quite honestly, it's the future. Mr C wrote a two-part rant back in August last year, entitled Print is Dead, and since then, we've gradually started to see a bit of a shift. When the postal strike hit, the major flaw in the print subscription model was highlighted. What was already out of date information became even more irrelevant by the time it reached consumer doormats, and in some cases it never showed up at all. The introduction of a temporary digital installment of the magazine was a stroke of genius, and a great way to deal with the problem, but it was a sad moment when it disappeared.
Previously, we'd been interested in purchasing the online subscription to Racecar Engineering, which is available through digital publishers Zinio. At the moment, the service isn't ideal, requiring you to download custom reading software. However, Zinio are working on an iPhone app, albeit one that's only available in the US at the moment. Presumably this will scale up for the iPad, and once available in the UK, we'd definitely consider subscribing to RCE. Mr C can then pretend to understand a digital version of the magazine, instead of the paper version.
For us, the ideal solution for an online magazine format is a PDF file, as showcased so well by GP+. Files are easy to archive and more importantly, you can search for words and phrases and find what you're looking for directly from your desktop. The solution that Autosport.com used to cover the postal strike trial, and presumably will continue to adopt for the upcoming subscription model, is provided by Ceros. This system provides a flash version of the magazine with scrollable pages and clickable links. It's a huge step in the right direction, but still isn't quite as accessible as we'd like.
All reservations aside, though, this is brilliant news from Haymarket, and has restored a little of our faith in their ability to adapt to changing technologies. This is the only way we would ever have subscribed to the weekly Autosport magazine again, and we shall be doing just that.
The real beneficiaries of this, though, are not us here in the UK, but the people living overseas who have to wait for their magazines to be shipped, and have nothing of an equivalent nature in their own countries. USF1 are bringing international fans to Formula 1, and now Autosport will bring timely F1 features and insight to them.
The information is at our fingerprints, but most importantly, at everybody's fingertips at the same time. Autosport are taking the right steps, even if they are baby ones. F1 Racing, it's now over to you.
Today we've got another launch in store. This time Ferrari are due to unveil their new car, and we're hoping it will be a bit more than just a livery. There'll be a breakout thread along shortly to cover the launch, and apparently there's live streaming! Loving the interactivity this year. Anyways, here are some other things we're talking about:
Talking of launches, Mercedes posted a replay of their online stream so that if you missed the event on Monday, you can catch right up. Naturally, a lot of it is in German, and you still don't manage to get a good look at the car, but it's worth watching if you've got a spare half hour.
We had some real good news yesterday (before all the Apple stuff kicked off) in the shape of Autosport preparing to announce the introduction of digital magazines. They trialled the idea when we had the postal strike in the UK, and now it looks as though it's coming back for real. This is very good news, and whilst the setup isn't perfect for searching and archiving information, it's an amazing step in the right direction.
So, yes, there was Apple news yesterday, and as content producers, we are quite excited about the new iPad. That is a stupid name, by the way. Mr C spent most of the evening daydreaming about what he could get up to on the new device. If you have thoughts about the device, please share them in our dedicated thread, it's not all a love-fest, I promise.
That should do it for now. There's plenty to keep us busy to forget the fact that it's Thursday, so I will see you in the comments.
Dan Brunell of the website Racing Eagles, left us the following extended comment yesterday and we liked it so much, we turned it into a guest post.
Ah, the new world of the internet. The PR world have finally caught up. Sorry if this is a bigger picture but Stuart's recent post illustrates something interesting happening to new media.
It reminds me of me something I presented at a seminar a few months ago. Where there are so many news outlets and so few news stories, that the commentary takes over the news. It’s the reason why there are ten news channels on American cable TV. It's not because they are ten separate news gathering organizations competing against each other (they let AP and Reuters do the dirty work for them) but they are ten channels of commentary specifically geared toward the demographic of their audience reacting to the news.
It's the same thing that has happened with Formula One. There are so many sites that comment on F1 news, that it makes the job of PR agents and communication staffers with these teams, sponsors, organizers, and drivers so easy. If you want to create a buzz or controversy or PR or whatnot; send a press release and in your words will be Ctrl-A-Ctrl-C-Ctrl-V.
I won’t regurgitate Stuart's points but he is spot on. This sort of manipulation done by agents and teams is stuff that normal F1 reporters and well-informed fans (which I would consider most of the Sidepodcast community) to dismiss the facts from realities. However, it allows for vultures like GMM to prosper. They play off ignorance of news sites like ESPN who don’t know any better and will just cut the check to them.
The thing is; I think the tide is turning a bit against this kind of thing.
See, the one big mistake that American newspapers made with the internet is that they cared more about being timely than playing to their strength of being insightful. It played against the natural competitive streak of journalists who would be in competition to see who can get a story out first. It killed them because everyone had that particular story out there. It was also free because everyone was afraid that if they made people pay for the exact same AP story, they would go elsewhere. They didn’t realize that their strength was the quality of the reporting that the public could not get anywhere else. It’s has killed them as they’ve hemorrhaged the very staff they need to survive to provide this quality. (Thank the lord I didn’t make it a career and went to media relations instead.)
It's something that reminds me of what Joe said in his last podcast to the effect that anyone can tell you the news but it matters when someone intelligent tells you what it means. What the newspapers in America are now realizing, and what the hopefully successful ventures of GrandPrix+, Autosport, and Racecar Engineering into on-line subscriptions will show, is that people will always pay for quality above all else. We may not like having to sign in or depart with hard earned dollars but in order for these publications to keep the quality up, they need our money to function.
I think this is the direction things are going and I think it will work out. There will always be tabloid rags to sit on the grocery store racks, but when push comes to shove and you want to know what is going on, you go to a place you trust. It's why the magazine The Economist cannot keep on the shelf over here.
It is also the same reason why I like Joe Saward. That is why I like Sidepodcast. That is why I like writing to the caliber Stuart showed in this article.
There are things worth supporting... which reminds me I need to set up an automatic donation account with Sidepodcast.
Earlier today I had a bit of a rant about how physical paper makes it very hard to share content amongst friends, especially when all your friends are online. The replacement of print material with its digital counterpart is a large subject and not all of it can be pointed in the direction of Formula 1, but there are a couple of further aspects I wanted to briefly cover.
Advertising Space
Many, many moons ago we took out an advertisment in the weekly magazine, Autosport. It was reasonably priced, located near the back, and ran for 12 weeks or so. Creating the initial advert wasn't hugely complicated, but we chose not to take out a second run of banners because we had absolutely no idea if, or how well, the promotion worked. Herein lies the second major problem with print.
We actually still regularly pay Haymarket money in return for promotion, we pay them a small amount every month to advertise on Autosport.com, using Google AdWords. As it's an online solution, we only pay for individual clicks and we can see if the clickthough has led to more page views or if the person took one look and went elsewhere. It's very simple to see what worked and what didn't because you have solid metrics to back you up.
Do some keywords fare better than others? Which headlines provided the most interest? Everything is completely transparent, it's quick and easy to tailor things on the fly and straightforward to vary advertisements according to budget. We have, in the past, run an advertising campaign purely for the live commenting of races. At most that means running ads for a maximum of four hours before closing them again. Try doing that in print.
Admittedly online marketing isn't perfect, many web users block banners completely for instance, but by and large paying for an appearance on Autosport.com is preferable to paying for something similar in the paper magazine. Once you've compared online versus offline, there really is no going back.
Seek and You Shall Find
Talking of going back, have you ever tried to find anything in a back issue of print magazine? You may have a vague idea of what you're looking for, and can possibly take a guess at when it occurred, but where do you start looking?
We frequently have this problem, and no matter which solution we've tried, the only thing that works is spreading a couple of years worth of content across the floor and turning pages. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Predictably digital search is much easier and we've discussed the convenience of having issue of the very searchable Grand Prix+ on your desktop several times in the past (incidentally GP+ doesn't have usable links this side of the paywall, and that's something of a pain when sharing). Autosport.com also has a useful search service that can scan the restricted content which is invisible to regular search engines.
It's still too hard to find content online, requiring multiple searches across many services, but I'll take that over flipping pages on the living room floor any day.
One thing to think about is the idea of putting back issues of magazines online. Would you be interested in searching old copies of F1 Racing right back to the first issue. I know I would and I'd be happy to pay for that too. Is it remotely possible? I have no idea but it is something to aim for.
Me and Page 22
It would be remiss of me not to mention me and page 22. Earlier this year we had a huge amount of fun after Sidepodpictures appeared in copies of F1 Racing and Racecar Engineering. I won't deny we were ecstatic to see them there. You could also argue that people photographing themselves with physical magazines is far more interesting than if they'd appeared online.
I would say that as the two magazines are published monthly there's much less emphasis on timely news stories and therefore they become obsolete less quickly. I suspect though that one day the monthly magazine's time will eventually come, and the inability to search, link, and share may mean we eventually rethink how we consume those too.
We've talked a lot recently about our desire to start a new website, with accompanying show. A site relating to the changes affecting various aspects of the media industry right now. That's still very much the plan, and this post would likely have been destined for inclusion there. However, the subject tenuously relates to F1, so lets publish it here and try not to lose or bore any race fans in the process.
I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker
We are currently living through and experiencing a massive change in the way information is delivered and consumed. We likely won't appreciate just how big a change it is until long after the fact, and with the benefit of hindsight.
Christine and I can be considered early adopters, embracing change with open arms. We long ago removed all Compact Discs from our home, preferring the convenience of portable audio. Since the introduction of downloadable movie rentals to the UK, I don't think there's a DVD to be found anywhere around here. If you've been following recent conversations in the comments, we're very keen to get our hands on an e-book reader in order to swap legacy paperbacks for their digital counterparts. In short, we embrace what is, for want of a better name, new media.
The internet is the enabler for such new media. The world at your fingertips, information at the speed or light and any number of clichés you wish to throw with abandon. However, the internet we thought we knew is changing more rapidly than one might realise. The commenting doohickey provides a tiny insight into where the real-time web might be heading, a seemingly continual stream of ever updating conversation amongst friends from all corners of the globe. Yet despite the advances in speed, the conversation still relies heavily on links to external sources. The best way of sharing information is still via a link.
One of the most overlooked aspects of the internet is the humble Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), or if you prefer, the thing you type in the address bar of your browser, a link. URI's give information a permanent location on the web. They allow information to be recalled and more importantly in the ever more social web, they allow information to be shared. We might be mildly obsessed by URI's at Sidepodcast - every post has one, every comment has one and we're working on ways to link directly to sections within audio and video shows. In an ideal world, every piece of data would have an associated URI in order for it to be shared, recalled and discussed as necessary... when necessary.
Linking makes the social, well, more sociable and without it conversation takes considerably more effort. Which is why we know print is dead. It's been a long time coming, but social networking has finally rendered the printed page obsolete.
Dead is Dead
Remaining marginally rational for a moment, it's probably worth adding that the length of the printed material and the type of content held within appears to have a bearing on just how dead it might be. Short passages of content would seem to be first on the chopping block. Quick snippets of content are easily replicated online. Longer pieces may earn a reprieve, and a novel's worth of content might hang on for a long time to come. Equally print's lifespan could be categorised by type, with news being the first to suffer, while fictional content may survive in print format for many years.
At present, news agencies are going through a significant shake up, with both Associated Press and News Corporation struggling to find business models that work for them and the consumer. Upheaval would seem to be the buzzword of the times.
News providers are struggling... really struggling. As yet there isn't a workable micropayment solution available on the web, and there needs to be. Successful paywalls do exist, Autosport.com have a workable system, whereby timely news articles are available free for 30 days, while opinion pieces are subscription only by default. The system works because every story has a unique identifier which can be shared. All of this means articles can be shared and discussed (and sometimes torn to pieces) here and on other social networking sites. You might say the system is close to perfect and at the time of writing, monthly subscription is a very reasonable £3.75 GBP per month. Except it isn't quite perfect, some people aren't quite ready to let go of the print medium that's filled their coffers for many a year.
Two weeks ago I had a bit of a hissy-fit about a rather silly statement contained within one of the paywalled opinion pieces. It read:
Ferrari believes Massa lost consciousness almost immediately (see MPH column in Thursday's Autosport magazine)...
Magazine? The paper thing sold in shops. Thursday? Four days away. Why on earth couldn't the article be made available to online subscribers there and then? Digital delivery is near instantaneous. If you wait and grab a copy, how might you then share the article amongst friends?
I complained on the Autosport forum designated for such purposes, and while I've been ignored by staff responsible, scheivlak pointed out that four days wait is nothing compared to anyone who receives the magazine overseas.
In a globalised world, paper is a stupid way of delivering timely information. Whilst plugging the paper alternative from an online subscription service is an insult.
Autosport.com did a similar thing thing today with an article on Piquet, so they clearly aren't listening, or they don't understand. The infrastructure is in place, the writing is on the wall, yet it seems nobody inside Haymarket seems to have a clue.
By all means keep producing the paper magazine. Keep producing it until the finances no longer stack up, and the last reader passes away, but for goodness sake have the common sense to make that same content available online and accessible via the humble URI. We rely on it. Put the subscription price up if you have to, we just want to share your stories we want to discuss it now, not next Thursday.
I hope somebody is still reading, it's a long winded complaint, and I'm not even done yet! There is still more to say on this so look out for part two shortly. Regular F1 programming will return shortly.
The teams are threatening to pull out of the sport and we're hearing complaints about the budget caps all over the place. However, it's time to look to the positives, and see what else is happening following the Spanish GP:
Jake Humphrey discusses all things motorhome, and ignoring the fact that he walked into a door (it happens to everyone), he describes the Beeb's offering: "Ours has a little kitchen... some metal steps that have stripped the skin from everyone's shins and carpet on the walls... but it's a cosy home for our team and I think I'll grow to love it by the time we've lived here for a few races." Sounds... lovely.
Autosport have their Paddock Life edition out and it describes karting with Anthony Davidson, the motorhomes (of course), and an anonymous anecdote about a driver being lent a car over the break.
Ollie has a great caption contest up on BlogF1, which features a certain driver and is pretty topical considering the ongoing speculation about his commitment. If you're feeling particularly witty, head on over and leave a caption. Let us know if you do.
That'll do it for now. Apparently Ferrari are having a super-hasty and important meeting today, but who knows if we'll hear anything from them. Hope to hear from you though, as I'll see you in the comments.
This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.
Formula 1 is a very photogenic sport, with teams and sponsors wanting their cars to be captured and displayed as often as possible. There are a few good places to check out the latest photographs from the F1 world, and I'm here to share them with you.
F1.com Gallery The Official F1 Website has galleries from many events, including the races, launches, PR gatherings, and tests. The pictures aren't always of a high quality, particularly of on-track action, but they capture the moments very well. Some of them are screen captures of moments you might have missed whilst watching the race live or on TV. Definitely worth a look.
Autosport - The Photo Gallery Autosport.com has an extensive collection of photographs from every conceivable event, across all forms of motorsport. F1 features heavily, and there are captures from recent launches, and races, but they really shine during the tests. There are many high quality, beautiful photographs from the tests, which are really useful to look at when we have no coverage elsewhere.
LAT Photo LAT are a well known name in F1 photography, and as their website says, they are: "The largest motoring and motor sport collection in the world." Most of the photos featured on Autosports gallery are from LAT, but it's a great place to go directly if you want to see more.
Flickr Search = formula 1 Flickr is a great place to look at uploaded photographs from fans. The above link leads directly to a search for the tag "formula 1" which will bring up all relevant photos with the most recent first. Of course the quality of the pictures will vary, and they may not be relevant at all, but it's always nice browsing if you're not looking for anything in particular.
