Here are May 2022âs imagesâaides-mĂ©moires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month.
Posts tagged ‘Brazil’
May 2022 gallery
02.05.2022Tags: 1960s, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1970s, 1971, 1980s, 1983, 1986, 2022, advertisement, advertising, Alfa Romeo, Brazil, Canada, car, Envoy, fashion, film, GM, humour, James Bond, language, modelling, musician, Netherlands, Opel, Panos Emporio, retro, science, Sweden, Twitter, UK, Vauxhall
Posted in cars, culture, gallery, humour, interests, internet, marketing, Sweden, technology, UK | No Comments »
December 2021 gallery
01.12.2021Here are December 2021âs imagesâaides-mĂ©moires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month.
Notes
Roger Moore and Ford Fiesta Mk I, via George Cochrane on Twitter.
More on the Volkswagen Fox in Autocade.
More on the Ford Consul Corsair at Autocade.
The Guardian article excerpt, full story here.
The devil drives Kia? Reposted from Twitter.
Audi maths on an A3, via Richard Porteous on Twitter.
Christmas decoration, via Rob Ritchie on Twitter.
Back to the â70s: Holden Sandman used for Panhead Sandman craft beer promotions.
GeorgiaâPacific panelling promotions, 1968, via Wendy O’Rourke on Twitter.
Ford Cortina Mk II US advertisement via the Car Factoids on Twitter.
Bridal fashion by Luna Novias, recently featured in Lucire.
Deborah Grant in UFO, with the VWâPorsche 914, which would have looked very modern at the time.
Freeze frame from episode 1 of The Champions (1968), with William Gaunt, Stuart Damon and Alexandra Bastedo.
Our rejected greeting card design, with a picture shot at Oriental Parade, Wellington.
Ford Taunus GT brochure spread via the Car Factoids on Twitter.
My Daddy Is a Giant image and UK measures, reposted from Twitter.
Richard Nixon attempts to appeal to younger voters, 1972. Simple, modernist design using Futura Bold.
A 1983 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am advertisement.
Mazda Savanna brochure via George Cochrane on Twitter.
More on the Renault Mégane E-Tech Electric in Autocade.
Lucire issue 44 cover, photographed by Lindsay Adler, layout by me.
Tags: 1960s, 1963, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1970s, 1971, 1972, 1980s, 1983, 1988, 2000s, 2006, 2021, actor, actress, advertising, Aotearoa, Audi, book, Brazil, car, celebrity, Christmas, COVID-19, design, election, electric cars, fashion, fashion magazine, film, Ford, GeorgiaâPacific, GM, graphic design, Holden, humour, ITC, Japan, JY&A Media, Kia, Lindsay Adler, Lucire, magazine, marketing, Mazda, media, modernism, New Zealand, newspaper, Norway, photography, politics, Pontiac, Porsche, Renault, Roger Moore, The Guardian, TV, Twitter, typography, UK, USA, Volkswagen, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara
Posted in cars, culture, design, gallery, humour, interests, media, New Zealand, politics, publishing, TV, typography, UK, USA, Wellington | No Comments »
Have you driven a Ford ⊠lately? Probably not
13.09.2021
Ford’s Brazilian line-up, 2021. Once upon a time, there were locally developed Corcels and Mavericks; even the EcoSport was a Brazilian development. Today, it’s Mustang, a couple of trucks, and a rebadged Chinese crossover.
We heard a lot about the demise of Holden as GM retreats from continents at a time, seemingly in a quest to be a Sino-American player rather than a global one. Weâve heard less about Ford shrinking as well, though the phenomenon is similar.
Fordâs Brazilian range is now the Mustang, Ranger, Territory (which is fundamentally a badge-engineered Yusheng S330 from China with a Fordized interior), and Bronco. Itâs beating a retreat from Brazil, at the cost of tens of thousands of jobs (its own, plus associated industriesâ) in a country that already has 15 per cent unemployment.
Their reasoning is that electrification and technological change are driving restructuring, which seems plausible, till you realize that in other markets, including Thailand where thereâs still a plant making Fords, the company is fielding essentially trucks, the truck-based Everest, and the Mustang.
Ford warned us that this would be its course of action a few years ago, but now itâs happening, it makes even less sense.
Say itâs all about (eventual) electrification. Youâd want vehicles in your portfolio now that lend themselves to energy efficiency, so that people begin associating your brand with it. Trucks and pony cars donât fit with this long-term. And I still believe that at some point, even before trucks commonly have electric powertrains, someone is going to say, âThese tall bodies with massive frontal areas are using up way more of the juice Iâm paying for. We donât need something this big.â
Letâs say Ford quickly pivots. It sticks a conventional saloon body on the Mustang Mach-E platform (which, letâs be honest, started off as a Focus crossoverâthe product code, CX727, tells us as much) in record time. Would anyone buy it? Probably not before they see what the Asians, who donât abandon segments because they canât be bothered working hard, have in their showrooms. Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Mazda, and countless Chinese marques, have been building their goodwill in the meantime.
Itâs why two decades ago, I warned against DaimlerChrysler killing off its price-leading brand, Plymouth. You never know when recessionary times come and you want an entry-level brand. Before the decade was out, that time came, and Chrysler didnât have much it could use without diluting its existing brandsâ market perceptions to have some price leaders.
Ford retreating from B- and C-segment family cars, even CD- and E-segment ones, means itâll find it difficult to get back into those markets later on. A good example would be the French, who donât find much success in the large saloon market generally, and would find it very hard to re-enter in a lot of places.
I realize the action isnât in regular passenger cars these days, but the fact that Fiat, Chevrolet and Volkswagen still manage to field broad lines in Brazil suggests that the market still exists and they can still eke out some money from their sales.
Itâs as though the US car firms are giving up, ceding territory. And on this note, Ford has form.
In the 1990s, Fordâs US arm under-marketed the Contour and Mystique Stateside, cars based on the original European Mondeo. I saw precious little advertising for them in US motoring press. As far as I can tell, they wanted to bury it because they didnât like the fact it wasnât developed by them, but by Fordâs German-based team in Köln. âSee, told you those Europeans wouldnât know how to engineer a CD-segment car for the US.â The fiefdom in Dearborn got its own way and later developed the Mazda-based Fusion, while the Europeans did two more generations of Mondeo.
In the 2000s, it decided to flush the goodwill of the Taurus name down the toilet, before then-new CEO Alan Mulally saw what was happening and hurriedly renamed the Five Hundred to Taurus.
It under-marketed the last generation of Falconâyou seldom saw them on forecourtsâand that looked like a pretext for closing the Australian plant (âSee, no one wants big carsâ) even though by this point the Falcon was smaller than the Mondeo in most measures other than overall length, and plenty of people were buying similarly sized rear-wheel-drive saloons over at BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
The Mondeo hybrid has been another model that you barely hear of, even though the Fusion Hybrid, the American version of the car, had been on sale years before.
Think about what they gave up. Here, Ford once owned the taxi market. It doesnât any more as cabbies ultimately wound up in Priuses and Camrys. Had Ford fielded a big hybrid saloon earlier, Toyota might not have made inroads into the taxi market to the same extent. Ford almost seems apologetic for being in segments where others come to, and when challenging the market leaders, doesnât put much effort in any more.
Objectively, I would rather have a Mondeo Hybrid than a Camry, but good luck seeing one in a Ford showroom.
Maybe Fordâs smart to be putting all its resources into growth areas like trucks and crossovers. Puma and Escape have appeal in the B- and C-segment crossover markets in places like New Zealand. Theyâre fairly car-like now, too. But to me thatâs putting all your eggs into one basket. In countries like Brazil and Thailand, where Ford doesnât sell well resolved crossovers in these segments, itâs treading a fine line. I look at the market leadership it once had in cars, in so many places, and in 2021 that looks like a thing of the past. Moreâs the pity.
Tags: 2021, Brazil, business, business strategy, car, car industry, China, electric cars, Ford, history, JMC, marketing, strategy, Thailand, truck, USA, Yusheng
Posted in business, cars, China, globalization, marketing, USA | 1 Comment »
August 2021 gallery
11.08.2021Here are August 2021âs imagesâaides-mĂ©moires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month.
Sources
Volkswagen Gol G4âmore at Autocade.
The fake friends of social media being the junk food equivalent of real friendships, from this post by Umair Haque.
Stay at home, wear a maskâgeek humour shared from Twitter.
Thaikila swimwearâseems to have an interesting history.
More on the Fiat 124 Sport Spider here at Autocade.
Jerry Inzerillo, first male on the cover of an issue of Lucire anywhere in the world, in this case the August 2021 issue of Lucire KSA. The story can be found here on our website.
Tags: 1960s, 1970s, 1990s, 2000, 2010s, 2011, 2021, actor, advertisement, advertising, Bali, Brazil, business, car, celebrity, COVID-19, culture, fashion, fashion magazine, Fiat, Ford, France, Google, humour, Indonesia, internet, Jerry Inzerillo, Lucire, Lucire KSA, magazine, Mazda, newspaper, Otosan, prediction, publishing, Renault, Sean Connery, society, Turkey, Twitter, UK, Umair Haque, USA, Volkswagen
Posted in business, cars, culture, gallery, internet, publishing, USA, Wellington | No Comments »
July 2021 gallery
02.07.2021Here are July 2021âs imagesâaides-mĂ©moires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month.
Sources
Star Trek: 1999 reposted from Alex on NewTumbl. Didn’t Star Trek and Space: 1999 share a producer?
Publicity shot for French actress Manon Azem, from Section de recherches.
Charlie Chaplin got there first with this meme. Reposted from Twitter.
I realize the history page in Lucire KSA for July 2021 suggests that you need a four-letter surname to work for Lucire.
The 1981 Morris Ital two-doorâsold only as a low-spec 1·3 for export. Reposted from the Car Factoids on Twitter.
Ford Capri 1300 double-page spread, reposted from the Car Factoids on Twitter.
Alexa Breit photographed by Felix Graf, reposted from Instagram.
South America relief map, reposted from Twitter.
From the Alarm fĂŒr Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei episode ‘Abflug’, to air July 29, 2021. RTL publicity photo.
Lucireâs Festival de Cannes coverage can be found here. Photo courtesy L’OrĂ©al Paris.
Last of the Ford Vedette wagons, as the Simca Jangada in Brazil, for the 1967 model year. The facelift later that year saw to the wagon’s demise.
Ford Consul advertisement in Germany, announcing the 17M’s successor. Interesting that the fastback, so often referred to as a coupĂ©, is captioned as a two-door saloon, even though Ford did launch a “standard” two-door. More on the Consul in Autocade here. Image from the Car Factoids on Twitter.
Tags: 1910s, 1960s, 1966, 1967, 1970s, 1972, 1980s, 1981, 2010s, 2020, 2021, actor, actress, advertisement, advertising, Alarm fĂŒr Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei, BL, Brazil, Cannes, car, cartography, celebrity, Charlie Chaplin, China, Chrysler, COVID-19, culture, electric cars, Facebook, film, Ford, France, Geely, Germany, history, humour, Lucire, Lucire KSA, media, Mercedes-Benz, modelling, newspaper, parody, popular culture, privacy, publishing, retro, RTL, South America, Sweden, TV, Twitter, UK, USA, Volvo
Posted in cars, China, culture, design, France, gallery, humour, internet, marketing, New Zealand, publishing, Sweden, technology, TV, UK, USA | No Comments »
Crunching the COVID-19 numbers for June 15
15.06.2020I hadn’t done one of these for a long time: take the number of COVID-19 cases and divide them by tests done. For most countries, the percentage is trending down, though there has been little movement in Sweden. I hadn’t included Brazil, Russia and India before, but as they are in the top part of the table, I’ve included them for the first time for context. That does leave the C of the BRIC countries out, but as China does not disclose its testing numbers, I can’t work out a figure for them. Given the news, it is no surprise that Brazil has the worst percentage I have seen since I began crunching these numbers: more than half of the tests done result in a positive. The source is Worldometers.
Brazil 867,882 of 1,604,784 = 54·08%
Sweden 51,614 of 325,000 = 15·88%
France 157,220 of 1,384,633 = 11·35%
KSA 127,541 of 1,106,398 = 10·99%
USA 2,162,261 of 24,795,407 = 8·72%
Singapore 40,818 of 488,695 = 8·35%
Switzerland 31,131 of 461,128 = 6·75%
Spain 291,008 of 4,826,516 = 6·03%
India 333,255 of 5,774,133 = 5·77%
Italy 236,989 of 4,620,718 = 5·13%
UK 295,889 of 6,772,602 = 4·37%
Germany 187,671 of 4,694,147 = 4·00%
Russia 537,210 of 15,161,152 = 3·54%
South Korea 12,121 of 1,105,719 = 1·10%
Taiwan 445 of 74,409 = 0·60%
New Zealand 1,504 of 311,121 = 0·48%
Australia 7,335 of 1,830,665 = 0·40%
Hong Kong 1,113 of 275,293 = 0·40%
It shows that COVID-19 is far from over, something that we here in New Zealand need to be reminded of as we begin to rebuild. Still, nearby Fiji is also COVID-19-free, so perhaps we can begin having some travel with them?
Tags: 2020, Aotearoa, Brazil, China, COVID-19, health, India, New Zealand, Russia, statistics
Posted in China, India, New Zealand, Sweden | No Comments »
A couple of days before it became official: thoughts on PSA and FCA linking up
01.11.2019
Companies in FCA’s and PSA’s histories did once produce the Plymouth Horizon, so historically there is some precedent to a trans-Atlantic arrangementânot to mention the type 220 and 179 minivans and the commercial vehicles currently in PSA’s and Fiat’s ranges.
This is a few days old, but it’s nice to know that these hurriedly written thoughts on a private Facebook group reflected what I read a day later in the automotive press.
Copied and pasted from the above (and yes, I know it should be e-208):
I read that as well, Jonathan. Elkann would be chairman and Tavares the CEO. I guess Fiat had to move on from talking with Renault while they have their internal squabbles. While some praise Marchionne, I thought it was foolish to let the less profitable marques suffer as he didâthe global economy doesnât stay buoyant all the time and at some point not everyone will want a hotted-up Alfa or Maserati. Especially as there seems to be no cohesive platform strategy. I think Fiat realizes the shambles itâs actually in despite what the share price says. There is some sense to have PSA platforms underpin a lot of Fiats (letâs face it, very little of the Fiat range is on a Fiat platformâthere are GM, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Ford and PSA bitsâand the old Grande Punto platform can only go so far), but the more premium marques will still have to have unique platforms.
Fiat really needs to do some rationalization of its own before approaching others but my sense is that itâs gone too far down this road and has no investment in either next-generation B- (Jeep Renegade) or C-platforms (Giulietta) where a lot of European sales will still lie. Its only real prize here is Jeep.
Tavares will be able to slash a great deal and Europe could look good quite quickly, but I doubt anyone has any focus on the US side of things other than Jeep. PSA has some limited experience in South America but it wonât be able to integrate that as easily. And neither has any real strength in China despite being early entrants, with, again, Jeep being the exception. (Peugeot, DS and CitroĂ«n are struggling in China.)
He had claimed that PSA was looking at some sort of alternative retail model for the US, but it also seemed a bit far off.
If this happens, I think Tavares will âdo a Talbotâ on anything Fiat-related in Europe, eventually killing the Fiat marque (with maybe just a 208e-based 500 remaining), and keep Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Jeep. Chrysler will remain with the Pacifica, Dodge might still have the Durango, but everything else would get the chop unless they consider bringing in a rebadged 508. Ram and Fiat Profissional will stay as separate entities. Fiat do Brasil will get some PSA tech. Then there might be some logic to what is left but I still feel Fiat has to get itself in order first.
On reflection, maybe I was a little harsh on Sergio, as ignoring the mass-market brands has left FCA, with a portfolio of specialist and premium ones, a reasonably good fit for an organization that has the opposite set of strengths.
One question remains: which is the cheap brand, the Plymouth, here? You can’t always go premium: sooner or later, economies weaken and people will want something entry-level. There may be wisdom to retaining Fiat in some shape or form. One more 108 variant can’t hurt âŠ
Anyone notice a pattern here? That any company that owns Jeep eventually diminishes its own brand. Willys, Kaiser, AMC, Chrysler, and Fiat are either dead or no longer the forces they once were. Renault managed a controlling interest in AMC with 46·4 per cent in 1982, but that was bought by Chrysler five years later. At some stage, we must tire of these massive vehicles, and already there’s a suggestion that, in the US at least, nonconformist younger buyers are eyeing up sedans. Great if you’re Nissan in the US (and China), not so much if you’re Ford.
Tags: 2019, Alfa Romeo, branding, Brazil, business, car industry, cars, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS, Europe, FCA, Fiat, France, history, Italy, Jeep, Maserati, merger, Mopar, Peugeot, Plymouth, PSA, USA
Posted in business, cars, China, France, USA | No Comments »
How will things play out at Fiat?
02.04.2016
Above: The current Fiat 500. A year shy of its 10th anniversary, is it still cool in 2016?
The Detroit News reports that Fiat has been having trouble Stateside, with dealers now permitted to sell the cars alongside Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram instead of at stand-alone showrooms.
Itâs been worrying seeing Fiatâs plans unfold since it decided to take control of Chrysler, a firm that was once the darling of the US car industry, with its industry-leading R&D times, to one that was starved of investment in the 2000s.
Those initial plans, sold as a long-term strategy, turned out to be a short-term Band-Aid. With hindsight, maybe it wasnât too much of a surprise, since Fiat was still grappling with understanding just what it was taking on.
Fiat needed to do something given that things at home werenât looking too good, with a model range that wasnât very cohesive, and with its entries into the Chinese market having faltered a few times. To the casual observer, Fiat saved Chrysler, but thereâs some truth in saying that having the company that controls the Jeep brand was a lifeline to Fiat itself.
What weâve seen since those days was the failure of the strategy of twinning Chrysler and Lancia. While this was a marriage of convenience, I could see this having some long-term gains with Lancia focusing on smaller cars and Chrysler on larger ones, but the result in 2016 is that Lancia has been reduced to an Italy-only marque, the equivalent of what Autobianchi was a few decades ago. Once the Ypsilon is deleted, then Lancia is consigned to the history books.
The winner has been Alfa Romeo. It has only just returned to the junior executive segment with the new Giulia, after an absence of several years, and its 4C is a cracking sports car. Things are looking up, and rumours that Alfa and Dodge would be paired up in the same way Lancia and Chrysler were mercifully havenât come true. The Giulia platform could be used for future models. Jeep has benefited from Fiat platforms, and Ram has gained some Fiat vans.
But the parent brand, Fiat, has looked very uncertain for a while.
For a start, thereâs little uniformity globally. Fiat has the opportunity to offer the Viaggio and Ottimo in more places than China, slotting above the Ăgea, for example. While having unique models for South America makes some sense, because of Fiatâs strength there, thereâs an opportunity to globalize, with the Toro pick-up truck looking very appealing.
Without having more of its self-developed products, the Fiat range in Europe doesnât inspire too much confidence. While most manufacturers have one or two joint-venture models, Fiatâs range is almost exclusively made up of vehicles that have shared tech. The famous 500 and Panda are on a Fiat platform which has Chrysler input (before the takeover), and is shared with Ford for its B420 Ka. The Punto, 500X and 500L are on another platform shared with GM. The DoblĂČ is also offered to GM. The Qubo is the product of a joint venture with Peugeot. The Freemont is a rebadged Dodge Journey from MĂ©xico, which Fiat gained after the takeover. The 124 Spider is based on the Mazda MX-5, and built in Japan by that firm. The Fullback pick-up is a Mitsubishi Triton twin and made in Thailand by that Japanese firm.
Fiat, in other words, is holding down more relationships than Casanova.
As a casual observer, thereâs an opportunity for a massive streamlining of platforms, and offer more in-house models. That may well be happening, and letâs hope its current strategy is more long-term than its last.
Secondly, as mentioned earlier, Fiat hasnât had a great reputation of being able to carry out long-term salesâ strategies in many of its markets. Take New Zealand, for example, where Fiat was offering its (Grande) Punto and Bravo models, before it decided to pull everything and offer only the 500.
The Punto has returned after a hiatus, this time as a budget model, along with the Tipo 139 Panda, but those who bought Puntos in the 2000s might think twice about returning to a company that abandoned them and offered no direct replacement for their car when it came to trading up.
That lack of continuity could have some buyers worried, and Fiat needs to regain their trust in a big way.
Being the Five Hundred Car Company, which Fiat certainly was in the US, cannot help, if buyers expect Fiat to offer more. Weâve seen it fail here, and Fiatâs had to back-track. Even in Hong Kong, where Fiat had also been reduced to flogging only the 500, it has had to add the Freemont.
Fiat will argue that as it had been absent from North America for so long, it could re-enter the market-place with a single, fashionable model: after all, Mini and Smart have done.
The trouble is that Fiat isnât known as a niche brand: there was enough in the US media to indicate that this was an Italian giant, and the perception of such a large company didnât gel with it offering a niche range anywhere. It lacked the cachet of a brand that was created to be fashionable and funky from the outset. You just canât do it when thatâs the name of the owner (think: can you sell âcoolâ cars with GM as the brandâthat had been tried in New Zealand and failed dismally; or, going back a generation, Leyland? Volkswagen surely is the sole exception with its Beetle), and FCA, which the parent company is called, isnât a consumer-facing brand. Itâs just a company name with no brand equity.
In the same vein, average punters might not know of BMWâs connection with Mini, or Daimler AGâs connection with Smart. They stand alone with plenty of brand equity, helped by identifiable products, and, in Miniâs case, even helped by its image outside North America.
I also question whether the 500X and 500L are cute cars in the same vein as the original 500. Getting Ben Stillerâs Derek Zoolander character to advertise the 500X seemed good in theoryâtill it dawned on the public that the new Zoolander film was a bit naff, cashing in on last-decade nostalgia. Iâm not a fan of retro design, either, and I would have hoped that Fiat would have renewed its 500 by now, since weâre on to newer versions of the Beetle, Mini, and Smart. Itâs no surprise that Fiat sales are down 14·6 per cent so far this year.
If Toyota could not sustain Scion with all its muscle, then Fiat retail really should be integrated into dealerships selling Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram Stateside. And Iâd argue that Scion couldnât remain because the brand had lost its coolness among the college kids who bought the XB in the first place. Buyers in this consumerist game, and at the fashion end it is more a game than in any other, are notoriously fickle.
I donât know how itâs going to play out. Fiatâs a brand Iâve grown up with, and Iâve been visiting their dealerships since I was two years old. Back in the 1970s the showroom in Homantin, Kowloon had everything from 127s to 130s. Fiat was doing a brisk trade on 124s. I came close to buying various Fiat Group cars over the years, including a Tipo and a Lancia Delta, and more recently I had considered Alfa Romeo Mitos and Giuliettas. I briefly toyed with importing a Tipo 844 Lancia Delta from the UK badged as a Chrysler, but decided having a $75 1:43-scale one was enough.
To see Lancia decimated and now on life support as Fiat concentrated on making Chrysler and Dodge work, to see the home brand filled with other peopleâs products in the interim, and to receive news that US buyers werenât flocking to its showrooms in the same numbers any more, all make me concerned. Go to Italy and the taxi ranks no longer are dominated by Fiat Group cars: the cabbies have gone French and German. It’s all very well Maserati and Ferrari doing well but the former’s volumes won’t have a huge impact, while the latter has been separated and now has a different parent. The only continent where I think Fiat is making a decent bash of things is South America. I donât want to paint a doom-and-gloom picture, not least because I have fondness for all the brands that now fall under the Fiat umbrella. But the weaknesses, at least to an outsider looking in, outnumber the strengths. My gut says Fiat will work through it all, but will it do it in a fast enough fashion, or is there more pain to come?
Tags: 2016, Alfa Romeo, branding, Brazil, business, business strategy, car, car industry, cars, Chrysler, Dodge, exporting, Fiat, film, history, Italy, Jeep, Lancia, marketing strategy, North America, promotion, Scion, South America, Toyota, USA
Posted in branding, business, cars, China, globalization, marketing, USA | 2 Comments »
Bye to the US news app that ranks the Steven Joyce dildo incident above Martin Crowe’s passing
04.03.2016Iâve just switched from Inside, the much vaunted news app from entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, to Wildcard as my principal news app on my phone. I never got to use Circa (which I understand Jason was also behind), which sounded excellent: by the time I downloaded it, they had given up.
But we all need news, and I donât like the idea of apps that are from a single media organization.
Inside seemed like a good idea, and I even got round to submitting news items myself. The idea is that the items there are curated by users, shared via the app. There was a bit of spam, but the legit stuff outnumbered it.
However, I canât understand the choices these days. A few items I put in from Radio New Zealand, Māori Television and The New Zealand Herald were fineâstories about the flag and the passing of Dr Ranginui Walker, for instanceâbut none of the ones about the passing of Martin Crowe, possibly of more international interest, remained.
There were other curious things: anything from Autocar is summarily rejected (they donât even appear) while I notice Jalopnik is fine. When it comes to cars, this is the only place where the publication with the longest history in the sector is outranked by a web-only start-up, whose pieces are enjoyable but not always accurate. The only car piece it accepted from me was about Tesla selling in Indiana, but Renault, Volkswagen, Lamborghini, Porsche, Aston Martin and other manufacturersâ news didnât make it. This I donât get. And I like to think I know a little bit about cars, in the week when Autocade hit 8,000,000 page views.
Now, if this is meant to be an international app, downloadable by everyone, then it should permit those of us in our own countries to have greater say in what is relevant to our compatriots.
Visit the New Zealand category, and you see a few items from yours truly, but then after that, they are few and far between: the Steven Joyce dildo incident, for example, and you donât have to scroll much to see the Otago car chase being stopped by sheep last January. A bit more has happened than these events, thank you. No wonder Americans think nothing happens here.
According to Inside, these news itemsâseparated only by one about Apple issuing a recall in our part of the worldâare far more important to users following the New Zealand category than Martin Crowe’s death.
The UK is only slightly better off, but not by much. I notice my submission about Facebook not getting away with avoiding taxes in the UK vanished overnight, too.
News of the royal baby in Sweden wasnât welcome just now. Nor was the news about the return of one of the Hong Kong booksellers, but news from Bloomberg of a luxury home on the Peak, which I submitted last month, was OK. Lulaâs questioning by police has also disappeared (admittedly my one was breaking news, and very short), though Inside does have a later one about his brief arrest.
Yet to locals, the rejected ones are important, more important than Gladys Knight singing to a cop or a knife on O. J. Simpsonâs estate (which have made it).
This is a very American app, and thatâs fine: itâs made by a US company, and Iâm willing to bet most of its users are American. However, the âallâ feed, in my view, should be global; those who want news tailored to them already have the choice of selecting their own topics. (Itâs the first thing the app gets you to do after signing in.) And if some fellow in New Zealand wants to submit, then he should have the same capacity as someone in the US. After all, there are more of them than there are of us, and I hardly think my contributions (which now keep vanishing!) will upset the status quo.
Or does it?
I mean, I have posted the odd thing from The Intercept about their countryâs elections.
Whatever the case, I think itâs very odd for an app in the second decade of the century to be so wedded to being geocentric. I can understand getting stuff weeded out for quality concernsâI admit Iâve posted the odd item that is an op-ed rather than hard newsâbut this obsession to be local, not global, reinforces some false and outdated stereotypes about the US.
Itâs like Facebook not knowing that time zones outside US Pacific Time exist and believing its 750 million (as it then was) users all lived there.
My advice to app developers is: if you donât intend your work to be global, then donât offer it to the global market. Donât let me find your app on a Chinese app centre. Say that itâs for your country only and let it be.
Or, at least be transparent about how your apps work, because I canât find anything from Inside about its curation processes other than the utopian, idealistic PR that says weâre all welcome, and we all have a chance to share. (We do. Just our articles donât stay on the feed for very long.)
Wildcard has an attractive user interface, and its mixture of news is more appealing, especially if you want more depth.
Admittedly, Iâve only been on Wildcard for less than a day but Iâve already found it more international in scope. It also has more interesting editorial items. It is still US-developedâeast coast this time, instead of west coastâbut it supplements its own news with whatâs in your Twitter feed. Itâs not as Twitter-heavy as Nuzzel, which I found too limited, but seems to give me a mixture of its own curation with those of my contacts. The user interface is nice, too.
Iâm not writing off Inside altogetherâif youâre after a US-based, US-centric news app, then itâs probably excellent, although I will leave that decision to its target market. I can hardly judge when dildos matter more to its users than the greatest cricket batsman in our country.
For me, Wildcard seems to be better balanced, it doesnât make promises about public curation that it canât keep, and Iâve already found myself spending far more time browsing its pieces than the relatively small amount that seem to remain on Inside. It is still a bit US-biased in these first 24 hours, probably because it hasnât taken that much from my Twitter contacts yet. There seems to be more news on it and Iâm getting a far better read, even of the US-relevant items. Iâm looking forward to using it more: it just seems that much more 21st-century.
Tags: 2010s, 2016, Aotearoa, apps, Autocar, Brazil, cars, cellphone, China, computing, entrepreneurship, Flyme, geocentrism, Hong Kong, Inside, Jason Calacanis, journalism, media, New Zealand, news, software, Sweden, technology, UK, USA, Wildcard
Posted in business, China, culture, globalization, Hong Kong, interests, internet, media, New Zealand, politics, publishing, Sweden, technology, UK, USA | 2 Comments »
Cuba’s automotive time warp
29.05.2014My friend Stephen Smith filmed the following in Cuba, looking at the pre-1959 US cars that are still running (mostly on non-original engines) there. It’s also interesting for the odd non-US car that you see: various Ladas (the original Zhiguli shape), a Volkswagen Gol in one scene, and an Emgrand EC8. Steve and his wife Ilona Kauremszky have more travel stories at their website, www.mycompass.ca, and more videos at their YouTube channel.
Tags: 1950s, Brazil, Canada, car, cars, China, Cuba, Ilona Kauremszky, media, Mycompass.tv, retro, Russia, Stephen Smith, travel, USA, YouTube
Posted in cars, China, media, TV, USA | No Comments »