From small automotive blog to thriving car community

Car Throttle started life in 2008 as a small automotive blog. It was founded by Adnan Ebrahim in his spare time while studying Economics at University College London.

Over the last six years, the website has grown considerably into a buzzing car community, media platform and brand with four million users and 18 million pageviews per month. It now has eight full-time staff and recently picked up $1.6 million in new investment.

Aimed at young car enthusiasts between the ages of 17 and 24, Car Throttle has broken away from more conventional automotive news reporting. It has taken a different and unique angle, being branded by some as ‘Buzzfeed for cars’.

“It was always our intention to create one of the biggest car sites,” Ebrahim said. “Over the years, that has shifted in terms of how we achieve that goal, but the things we are able to do now, the cars that we drive, it is probably a lot more than I ever thought we would be able to achieve. But we have always had lofty ambitions and targets for the company.”

So, what are the plans for Car Throttle in the future? “Within the next few months, we are focused right now on the technology and the platform,” he added. “We are going to keep hiring, and towards the end of the year start exploring what we can do with the same platform with other verticals, in the hope that we can become one of the largest media platform companies in the world.”

#FollowFriday (on a Tuesday)

Want to know who to follow on Twitter from the world of Formula 1? Here are my five recommendations: 

@Autosport

Autosport is a popular and well-respected motorsport magazine, which now has a very influential website. It is usually the first place to post breaking news stories and has an impressive collection of writers, who dominate the paddock media sessions and secure interviews with motorsport’s most influential personalities.

@AdamCooperF1

As it says in his Twitter biography, Adam Cooper has been to every single Formula 1 race since the 1994 Japanese Grand Prix. He has written for some huge names in the world of motorsport – such as Autosport and Motor Sport magazine – and is one of the most respected journalists in the industry. His website is often one of the first to break news stories.

@WillBuxton

Will Buxton is another hugely talented and well-known motorsport journalist. He started his career writing for the likes of GrandPrix.com and the official F1 magazine before joining the GP2 Series as a press officer. Buxton then moved into television and commentary.

He was SPEED’s F1 pit lane reporter and now holds the same role at NBC Sports. He also commentates on GP2 and GP3, as well as sharing his opinions and experiences on Twitter and his blog.

@wtf1couk

WTF1 is one of my favourite Twitter accounts, largely because it makes me laugh all the time. The account is basically to make motor racing and F1 fun. It does this by promoting articles posted on the WTF1 website and sharing memes, pictures, videos and fails.

@ScarbsF1

The technical side of F1 is very complicated and quite confusing – well, for me anyway. Craig Scarborough is an expert in this field and explains the latest car updates and changes in a simple way that is easy to understand. The observations that he shares on Twitter on race weekends are always very interesting and insightful.

My media consumption

My morning and night-time routines are pretty much the same. As soon as I wake up and just before I go to bed, I will check through my Gmail, Twitter and Facebook apps. Sometimes I will even have a look at Google+, Snapchat and Instagram too.

But why is that? Well, in the mornings I like to catch up on anything I missed whilst I was asleep. In the evenings, I like to catch up on what has gone on during the day. These are daily routines for me and even if I have an early start, I will change my alarm so I have an adequate amount of time to check social media – who needs sleep anyway?

I use a lot of media throughout the day, with most of it being online. My motorsport blog is an important part of my life, so I will regularly head over there to take a look at my statistics, check articles or write new ones to either post immediately later on.

As I also contribute to other motorsport and motoring websites, I will regularly check news aggregator websites like NewsNow, GPToday or various Reddit feeds for news stories that are worth investigating and writing up or content ideas.

In all honesty, I am slightly obsessed with social media. I have my own Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Sportlobster accounts. I also help to run other pages on the former two networks, so throughout the day I will regularly check them, post new articles, pictures or videos and interact with other people.

I would say I spend more time on Facebook in comparison to Twitter. On the former, I tend to chat with colleagues throughout the day about content and plans for the near future, as well as managing the pages I help to run and chatting with friends. On Twitter, it doesn’t take long to reply and I generally just flick through my mentions and timeline.

If I have time for a break between freelance work and, now, University commitments, I often head over to YouTube, Buzzfeed or Car Throttle (which I contribute to), where it is easy to lose track of time.

At home I would typically watch TV – including, occasionally, news programmes like BBC Breakfast – but now that I don’t have one, I find myself using catch-up services like BBC iPlayer and Sky Go.

My main source for news is the BBC website. I look at the top stories and local news, as well as the Business, Politics, Technology and – of course – Sport sections.

Whilst most of my media consumption is online, I still read newspapers – when I am back home, I occasionally read the local ones, but I should probably read more national papers – and magazines such as Top Gear and F1 Racing (I am subscribed to both).

I would say 80% of the media that I consume on a typical day is online, with the remaining 20% being either print or TV.

Do journalists need to read more?

Journalists do not read enough. That is the viewpoint of Felix Salmon, which he explains in his “teaching journalists to read” post.

Salmon believes journalists need to broaden the reading that they do and get involved in the conversations that are all around them on all different types of media – from blogs to Twitter and Facebook.

“Reading is to writing as listening is to talking,” he says. Salmon also feels more critical reading needs to be done and thinks journalism is becoming much more conversational.

I agree. With the rapid rise in popularity of blogs and – more recently – social networks, everyone can share their views and get involved in discussions. It is also great for finding interesting content and stories that are exactly what you want.

Critical reading will help journalists to better understand stories and to form stronger viewpoints. This will in turn improve the pieces that they post and publish.

Reading more will also, in my view, enable journalists to gain more knowledge about the subjects that they are writing about. This will make for better quality pieces that are both more engaging and enjoyable to read, as well as including more insight.