This time last year, TTAC was paying its writers $25 per blog item and $200 per editorial/review. Compared to “real” websites, it was a pittance. In absolute terms, we were spending some $14k per month feeding the beast. When the ad money started to dry up, I was forced to reduce payments to $5 and $50. Now that money’s too tight to mention, our total editorial budget is zero. Nada. Niente. Aside from and including my work as a salaryman, all the content that you read here is a labor of love. It’s important for you to know because A) Respect to all our contributors, who’ve agreed to carry on because they love writing and believe in this site’s mission and B) Our writers and commentators are, once again, on equal footing. Yes. I realize that you, our Best and Brightest, add value to this site without financial compensation. So I want to formally express my eternal thanks to both writers and commentators for putting food on my table– especially during these dark days for the industry we love. I promise to reinstate our editorial budget as soon as possible. Someday, TTAC will pay top dollar for top talent. Until then, props to all of those who use this website to tell the truth about cars.
Keep up the great work, guys.
I do hope that you are able to someday pay your writers again, for they are well worth it.
I thank each writer here who puts love before lucre.
I do want to thank you everybody who works for and contributes to this site. The information and the atmosphere here are a welcome reprieve from rest of the internet. If the world were just, the quality of the content would guarantee success. I hope to continue reading all of you for years to come.
Thanks!
Sorry for the situation. Have you thought about making it a pay site to members? Do you know how many people subscribe currently? I’d pony up a few bucks for the continuation of the site. Why don’t you do a poll and see what the percentage of people willing to pay is?
Robert,
If you aren’t going to create a subscription based service, at least take donations.
I’m willing to be the first. Where do I send my money?
-ted
Props really! Thanks to all the writers and reviewers. And to Mr. Farago as well. We, well I at least, recognize your hard work and dedication and I know that you all will be compensated for it all.
All I can say at this moment is thank you.
Yes, thank you all….and please don’t be shy to ask for help. Also, you and your erstwhile sponsors should be advised that there is often purpose to the readership; it’s just that car purchase is a big capital expenditure. We’re not reviewing toasters here, these are long purchase cycles and they should be made with carefully weighed risk/benefit.
Now burning 30k miles per year, I consider reading TTAC to be intentional research, since I don’t particularly like paying too much for something either soon-to-be outmoded or a hidden market dredge.
Good work, Mr. Farago. But you should consider selling naming rights.
“The Taco Bell Truth About Cars”
Hang on on the revenue side. I’m talking to NM about various ideas put forth by the B&B.
We have 11,385 readers signed-up for our New Content Notification system.
I never submitted a monthly invoice because I knew this was a start-up deal. Ten years ago yours truly relied on the kindness of strangers and new acquaintances, and I just see this as returning the favor.
In my mind not only has this place been successful, it’s been downright prophetic of recent times. Very few media sources have their pulse that close to the going’s on of the auto industry. Even fewer have the independence and integrity to actually put those thoughts in writing. You did and you do.
Keep the sails up. You have a mighty wind blowing.
Plus one on the subscription (or donation) front. What sounds reasonable and where do we send our shekels? P.S. Please no PayPal.
Thank you for great writing and engaging content. The debate is advanced with every post, and that is your true genius. Please keep it up and let us know how we can help.
– bob
Thanks for a great site. PLEASE keep it up!
Mr. Farago, you’re welcome.
Thank you for running your site with a maximum of integrity and a minimum of BS.
Just throw up a PayPal donate button already! I’m sure you’ll easily get enough daily to reinstate the editorial budget. Or if Your old pal Bob objects, some other system to funnel dough to your account…
its true, I looked for a button to press to send in my $12 and couldn’t find it
Thank you.
Thanks to Mr. Farago and all contributors and writers for bringing us latest industry news, your thoughts and honest reviews! Keep up the good work and let’s hope that ‘The Great Recession’® is soon going to be over, so all of us could improve our financial situation!
No tip jar? Why not?
Look at how Leo Leport does his TWiT podcast (look under “Support TWiT”). He has voluntary micropayment subscriptions, like $2 a month, automatic.
Please don’t make it subscription only. I don’t wanna get cut off.
Not a tip jar. A Karma Jar.
I’m sure many here are familiar with the now famous Stewart v. Cramer battle in the media last week. If you didn’t catch their face to face interview on Friday check it out. ( http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=221516&title=jim-cramer-unedited-interview ) The underlying issues are very relevant to thethruthaboutcars.com.
To me the real point is Stewart’s criticism isn’t personal about Cramer or even about CNBC. It is a criticism of what the vast majority of modern journalism/opinion has become: Watered down fodder designed to pull in eyeballs for the purpose of monetizing those eyeballs.
Television, print and much of the web have become an echo-chamber of corporate shills. The vast majority of business news stories are nothing but a quick hack on the company’s press release, but the purveyors rarely tell you straight up that all they are doing is lifting a few paragraphs from something which came over the wire ( a nice bit of arcane terminology which hangs on like the appendix).
TTAC and a handful of other venues having taken the shackles off the writers and, more importantly, engage the readers in a way which makes them real participants. I don’t know what exactly has made the magic happen, but TTAC is a very different kind of place compared to any other automotive blog/editorials/news/discussion site. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to participate.
Why do I see a Chevy ad next to this post? :)
Mr. Fargo,
Where can we contribute? I appreciate the opinions and would be happy to sign up for recurring payments. I suspect many of us would.
I agree with yankinwaoz – please don’t make it subscription-only! Access is key to the value of the site.
Keep up the great work.
Well, at least we are all in the same boat. I say the donations way is the right way to go. Try it, and feel the karma flow in the right direction. I think there’s a lot of people that wants to contribute. This is, after all, the only watershed I know of in this business. There really is nothing else.
I don’t subscribe to any pay websites. But I would for TTAC. So if you decide to go that route, count me in as one more supporter.
One way you could help us now is turn off AdBlock (if you have it enabled) when you’re on TTAC. I use AdBlock, too, but turn it off for those sites I want to support. If you “Disable it on https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com,” you’d be doing us a favor . . .
Thanks and I’ll still be here proofreading.
The high-quality Motorcycle.com charges $11.99/yr for premium content. As should you. Not unreasonable. Go for it.
I got to hand it to all TTAC for taking a pay cut so the site will live. RF you are right this is a labor of love not only for you but for us.
$170 billion for the evil criminals at AIG but nothing for TTAC? Enough already! AIG should suffer a very painful death, and TTAC should enjoy a long and happy life. We’ve made lots of involuntary contributions to AIG, so now let’s make some voluntary contributions to TTAC. That’s putting the real priorities in the right order, it seems to me….
Thanks Farago and the fantastic writers of TTAC past and present. Best site ever. I really appreciate everyone’s hard work and especially Mr. Farago’s commitment to the mission, which is the TRUTH ABOUT CARS!!! :D
Maybe you could tell everyone to click on every ad a few times on this site. :)
I think donations are the way to go.
Making it subscription only will only alienate those of us who don’t have access to online payments even if we do have the cash to pay for it.
I thought of putting up ads for a minute, but then that would destroy the whole point of this site.
You can’t have an ad for a certain brand and still maintain completely impartial reviews about that same brand.
My thanks to Robert and everyone else that makes this site possible. I spend 30 minutes every day here, it really is part of my life. I will still be willing to pay my part when you give the word.
Try selling some hats and t-shirts for starters. Probably bring in a few k at the margin. If you can bring in a few extra k of revenue, that is the difference between being there and not being there. Things will turn up somewhat next year.
I look forward to your solution on getting that pesky cash-flow pointed in the right direction. The plus side is you’ve got a lot of people that support your product.
You should also submit this form when you file your ’08 Taxes:
http://mtblog.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2008/12/01/federalbailout.html
Chapeau!
to Mr. Farago and all his contributors and writers
Thanks to everyone who has invested time and knowledge here!I wish we were eywitnesses of rebirth of US car industry and manufacturing as such, not being compelled to comment her agony, greed, sloth and incompetence.Wish we were learning from japanese….starting from how to cast a high- precision Lexus power start button;)
This site has come a long way since I first discovered it looking for a VW R32 review and today. Does that make me 70 in The Best and Brightest years? Awesome work, awesome writers, awesome articles, awesome site. You’ve got a great thing going, and I can’t type in enough thanks to you and the writers’ hard work coming into this site.
Mr Farago
You sir deserve my $20 (where is the paypal link?) a yr over my R & T mag even over my CAR mag. Where can I sign up for this new content notification?
I come here to learn, to be educated and to find out.. exactly when GM and Chrysler ARE FINALLY GOING BANKRUPT… so I can finally take the day off and get drunk.. OUT OF MY SKULL, and thank god those COMMIE mooching bastards are bankrupt!
I come here to hear what has to be said and to learn. I come here to learn about how the politics of the auto industry is deep in the toilet. But mostly..
I COME HERE TO LEARN.. THE TRUTH ABOUT CARS!
And no other site gives the uncanny truth about who is getting screwed (us), who is making shit loads of money, sold us (not me especially) shit cars we didnt want, with the reliability and resale OF THE DO-DO BIRD and then get buyouts cause they abused the business (them).
Sir..
I’d buy you a beer or a sixpack (of your choice).. for just that!
Well maybe if you started tailoring your articles to be more corporate friendly you would start picking up more of those advertisers. Everyone else seems to have figured that one out.
On a serious note though, I am a big fan and have much respect to all involved.
+1 to all those who said “I’m waiting for the donate button.”
This is the first and only site I have unblocked from AdBlock Plus in FireFox. Took me 5 minutes or so to figure this filter out:
@@|https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/
I’d be willing to donate some money if a method was available. Just put a button somewhere and people will hopefully pay for it.
Also, if you haven’t yet, check out what Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has done in the last year or so. He’s no longer tethered to a record label, so he’s now making music and business decisions. Last March he released an album called Ghosts I-IV, which contained 36 tracks in total. The first 9 tracks were available as a free download to entice people to pay money for it, while different pricing schemes were setup to get the remaining tracks. Pricing went all the way from $5 for a DRM free download option, to $300 for a limited edition vinyl version. Not that selling music and selling web content are the same, but he’s had some interesting ideas to get fans to actually pay for stuff that a lot of people think of as being free in the internet age.
Thanks so much TTAC for everything. WTB a donate button!
Add me to those who would paypal $12 a year. I’ve done it before for a site that I wanted to keep flying.
I prefer the tipjar approach to the mandatory subscription approach. I know that fund drives are a PITA but once or twice a year isn’t bad, along with a reminder email to those who have previously donated.
I like what you do. Being a true Capitalist®, I don’t care if you get rich or go broke doing it, but I personally get more than 4 Starbucks a year’s worth of value out of this site….thus I’d consider it an excellent value to contribute that much to keep TTAC alive.
Thanks. I really like this site. Good luck!
Present a basic business plan: Principle’s history and qualifications, site growth/expansion record and future plans. Then sell stake in the site, divided into $500.00 and $1,000.00. The new shareholders would collect dividends on investment, or rollover to re-invest.
I totally agree with Accords. This website far surpasses my needs to pick up a C&D, R&T, or anything of the like. I still support my boys @ CAR, EVO and TG, but I’d still support the guys and girls @ TTAC.
Sidenote: What about an informal IPO? :)
I’d be a silent investor…. On two conditions:
Stay the course. Don’t sell out.
A quick thanks to you, Robert, and to all the writers at TTAC. You have all developed a site which is well deserving of all the praise above. Hopefully the loyalty to this site that all of you have engendered is a (small) compensation in economically tough times.
Well, on the bright side, it sure does clean up the pages without all that pesky advertising. (Ducking for cover now)
Farago – another few of these and people will be driving to your house trying to throw cash at you in person (which is probably the goal).
This is smart really – if you don’t have a donate button, it’s okay to highlight the cash deficit without looking like beggars. This method also allows us to demand you to let us give you money.
Enough, I say! We are convinced. Give us the button and we’ll give you the money. And: great writing all. I hope we can get you paid.
Mr. Farago, I’ve been reading TTAC for about a year and half and I can’t even imagine how the autoblogosphere would look without it.
Not sure if this has been suggested before but I’m convinced that one of the best ways to have all bases covered would be a mixed format of donations and name-your-own-price subscriptions. Test the waters and see which one is more successful. If one of them proves to be better, keep that one. If not, keep both options open, permanently.
http://forums.motortrend.com/70/7449856/the-general-forum/ttac-deathwatch-ii/index.html
FYI–I just found the “TTAC Deathwatch” over at MotorTrend forums.
RF – keep it up. This is a unique site that has developed into the great TTAC community that we all love.
My two words to you: donation link.
Holy sh*t, there is some serious hatred over on that Motor Trend forum. And they accuse TTAC of being negative?
Get that donation link up asap, Robert. If we lose TTAC all that will remain is the deluded, fanboy swill so amply demonstrated in that MT thread.
Raskolinikov,
Thanks for the link. A perfect example of why the only car forum I frequent anymore is TTAC, and why we need to keep TTAC going. The childish antics and boorish behavior that is allowed on other sites is just too much. There’s only one other site on the web that I would recommend, Stovebolt.com, and that’s because they have an editorial policy similar to TTAC’s, basically, keep it civil or find a new place to spread your childish hatred. It’s kind of sad or even comical that these people can’t step back and look at what they are saying. This site provides the truth. While I don’t always agree witht he commenters, the articles always lay out the facts, and unlike most forums, there is never any doubt in my mind where the facts end and the editorial content begins.
Wow, MotorTrend’s TTAC DW thread sure is something! Goll-eey. I haven’t seen such an extensive collection of Angry / Stupid since the WhatWouldJesusDrive forums!
Who needs additional content? I’ll subscribe just to spite these lunkheads, since they’re probably the same bunch of twits trying to race me at the stoplight in front of AutoZone.
I don’t mind having to pay to combat stupidity. In fact, I’m thrilled at the idea!
Just visited the MT link. It is nothing more than immature people sitting in Moms basement writing out of boredom from being lonely. I have been edited and warned by RF because I stated too strongly my feelings about him being too anti-Detroit, but it is his site, and we have freedom of speech and association in the US. Some of us served in the military to guarantee that. I still do not agree with RF on some points, but you have to give credit, he has not changed stripes.
So….How about the shares idea I floated earlier? If this site is to survive it must do something to effect change and not fall into the same trap as auto makers themselves. A clear forward plan must be made and followed….this from a project manager…
Hmmm
Ya know…
Far be it for me to speak the truth..
As Mr. Farago does often.
But TTAC is a pretty knowledgeable site, with a dozen people actually writing articles for TTAC that are informative, interesting and challenging mentally.. far from the slop thats put together over at M.T.
As for being anti-Detroit…
Mr Farago has been touting this information for the past 4yrs, before it seemed “cool” to be against the domestics. Then, they were actually doing it to themselves, where as now, the media is just stirring the cold gruel soup.
Anti-detroit.
Last time I checked.. The Accord for 09 didnt get such a great / glowing review. But I dont come on here for glowing remarks about a car that gained weight and dumped hoon-ability.
Ya come on here for the truth..
Screw all else and how it appears.
Like a child who mis-behaves..
He does need a good smack on the ass to right him. Just going into time out.. just doesnt work. P.C or not.
*Laughs* Mr Farago, you can bend me over your knee and smack my ass.. anytime.
P.S.
I do want to know how the new / current Mazda 3 hatch does in a review…
This is what TTAC is all about. Dont like it.. TOUGH!