While GM works to convince its paymasters that it’s becoming a leaner organization—as opposed to, say, smaller—rest assured that TTAC is about as lean as you can get without chipping a bone. Full-time staff: myself and the ever-dependable Edward Niedermeyer. The rest of TTAC’s team consists of unpaid volunteers: writers and thinkers whose desire to tell the truth about cars supersedes the need for cold, hard cash. Of course, this description also encompasses you, our Best and Brightest. So thanks again for being the heart and soul of the site. And thanks for your e-mails (now to farago@ttac.com). I’ve received hundreds of tips, links and pieces of insider info. And that was just this week. Seriously. I try to answer every email, but stuff slips through the cracks. For that I apologize. And issue a global thank you for all your help (even as I finally delete ancient emails). Please remember I’m inundated, not indifferent. If it’s really important, multiple pings are encouraged. Meanwhile, thank you for your understanding.
It’s all about the passion.
Don’t forget to enjoy Father’s day with your family this weekend.
I’m honestly surprised that a blog takes two full-time people. It appears TTAC is WordPress with a few plug-ins. That means 90%+ of the code is pre-written off-the-shelf.
It’s probably a bit big to be run as a hobby, given the comment moderation and news monitoring, but two full-time people? That’s very big for a blog. Many blogs have a half-dozen articles a day and are run by students.
Of course, if it works and you can make money at it, go for it! More power to you!
I do find the double-underline hover-over ads a bit obnoxious. I turned AdBlock Plus (Firefox plug-in that eliminates ads on the web) off the other day and happened to browse to TTAC. Wow, what a different experience…Google ads or flashing banners at the top, hover-over words in the text, flash ads on the sidebars, more banner ads at the bottom…really unpleasant, bordering on Chevrolet.
Fabbro, RF and Ed don’t just republish news. They write original analyses of current events. Then there’s the coordination of vehicle and product reviews, the vetting of tips, research, proofreading, editing of contributed pieces, and on and on. They usually make upwards of twenty posts a day.
TTAC is more than just a blog; it’s a news and information site that happens to run on WordPress.
@afabbro heh, I tried two different browsers and didn’t see it. Took me a few minutes of changing things around but I finally got to see the double-underline hover-over ads.
Yeah those are obnoxious. I wonder what percentage of the world actually sees them?
Robert,
Keep up the great work. You can’t get honesty in the auto business like this anywhere else.
-ted
afabbro, thanks for the Adblock tip…works like a charm. However, you missed the mark on the effort involved to keep TTAC humming. In fact, considering the depth of the material, it is surprising that there are only two full time staffers. Robert doesn’t miss much; I have found that when a connectivity issue caused double posts (and the second post has extra material), the TTAC staff combined them and eliminated the duplicated part. I have never experienced that kind of involvement in any other blog site. Ever.
This is one of the few, and I mean few, blogs where the comments are interesting, informative, and on stay on track. Most blogs comments are not worth wading through.
Good job.