Welcome to NextAutos
After months of hard work by many people within our company, we're happy to debut our new site, NextAutos.com. NextAutos is a smart place for car people to learn, share and connect. We welcome you to sign up (membership is free) by clicking here .
The new NextAutos.com combines the authority of our Winding Road Magazine editorial team with a decidedly democratic slant: as a member, you can author and upload your own stories directly to NextAutos—appearing side-by-side with stories written by our editors. With the interplay of our editorial team’s work and community-authored stories in full view, NextAutos systematically destroys the notion of what’s expert and what’s not. We believe the value of information is determined by its usefulness to the reader, not by who wrote it.
Of course, this doesn’t mean creation run amok. Our method to balancing what’s useful is found in our “Featured / Upcoming” button at the top of the pages you see on the site—Featured material includes material written by our editorial team, while Upcoming is all material written by our community. When certain Upcoming stories receive enough attention from our users, they’re promoted to the Featured page. If you only want to read the top news, information, and analysis, stick to the Featured page. But if you want to go deeper and find stories bubbling up from our community, click on Upcoming. Better yet, go a step further—write your own story .
For those of you who are used to reading Winding Road Magazine, we’re happy to have you on board. We, the people behind NextAutos—the same team that brings you Winding Road, have added a ton of new community features and functionality which go well beyond the scope of our magazine, which will go some way toward explaining our new name.
We speak for our entire company when we say we are very proud of the work that’s gone into NextAutos and we’re all excited we’re forging a new type of conversation—not pure user-generated content, not pure traditional editorial. We’re really establishing an expert social media network, where we invite our community to work with our editorial team to create something nobody would have ever thought possible. In creating this site we’re really doing something that no other media outlet is doing—unlike traditional social networks such as MySpace or Facebook, NextAutos combines the authority and trust of our automotive experts with the wisdom and power of our community—you. Never before has such a dialogue existed, and we think it will change the way people learn, share, and connect when it comes to automobiles.
So, in this period of launch, we ask that you bear with us while we continue to iron out the kinks. If you have a question or would like to send us a message, post it in our “NextAutos and Winding Road ” forum section or use our contact form to get in touch with us directly.
Thank you and welcome to NextAutos.com.
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Comments
Natasha
Congrats on the new site launch!
Strada Auto Store
Cool...Congratulations!
Deofol
Well, congrats... I guess.
But as a previous Winding Road reader WOW... Not a fan of the new format at all. Its way to busy, lots of wasted space(ie. the redundant space on each post with the image of the writer icon for one). I miss having the text on the main page post.. Seems like sometimes its there, sometimes its not. It's inconvienent to click into each post to get the story. Simplicity had its value.
Good luck with the new format, I'm sure everyone worked hard.
Unfortunatly for now, I'm looking else where for my daily auto news fix.
Bjorn
Desperately looking for the old news site. That was my daily fix! Please bring it back!
B
John
Hmmm, well grats I guess. Really though, the site design is horrendous. I thought I had gotten one of those "domain registration" sites that list various similar pages but not the one you want. Its bad guys. Really. Its insanely difficult to read and navigate. Oh well, atleast I have several other pages to get my info from.
Dave
I would have to agree with the above. Bring back the old format, or at least give us a link so we can use that as the starting page.
The new site is far too busy; it takes too long to sort through what is relevant. And, the entire site needs to shift to the right a bit. The A in Autos in the banner is cut off (both with FF and IE), and the text is too close to the left side of the window. Last, there is so much content on a page that I have to scroll the browser to the right to see it all (and I've got the browser window set pretty big). I don't like sites that require me to go full screen to see it all.
Keep it simple. More complexity will just turn people off.
Anonymous
Please bring back the previous simple format. When I go to a blog, I want to see a blog, not a menu of items on a website. I am not sure how and if I can find just one blog that shows all the day's news in one long list. Every other popular automotive-related blog (take Autoblog, for example) is simple and easy to navigate. I am afraid you guys have messed up a good thing here. Until the format is actually easy to understand and use, I'll be getting my news from Autoblog from now on.
Jonathan Fung
Hmm, I personally don't see anything wrong with this layout. I mean, for those complaining about blank space on the side, i'm sure it'll be gone after a while. Sure AB doesn't have much blank space there, but when you look at AB or any AOL weblog by content, you'll see that a large amount of their page is dedicated to adverts and incestuous links. (I love you, Autoblog. :] ) And for those of you who don't like the site layout, I highly suggest setting up an RSS reader, either in your email client or with something online like Google Reader. I love RSS; it's how I read the site, and it saves a lot of time.
As for the rendering problems that Dave points out, I think it's just because of your screen size. I'm running a widescreen moniter with high res, so the page is fine for me in my standard window size. The alignment is a problem when I shrink my window down, but I'm sure the WR tech people can fix that.
My only issue with the site so far is longer loading times. Probably due to some heavy coding or something. But I'm no expert in web design ever since the web hit 2.0, so I have no idea how to fix that.
As for my personal opinion, I like the new site, I'm going to have to play with it for a while to get used to it, but I think the new site has a lot of potential.
Jonathan Fung
Will Patrick
I gotta say I’m kind of disappointed... I'll definitely still read the mag, but as far as my daily news fix I've got to be honest, I may be headed back to .
P.S. Having now tried to post this multiple times I have to give the comments system a thumbs down as well!
Will Patrick
Really this is ridiculous it pulled out my hyperlink, now I really am headed back to leftlanenews.com!
GeoSB8K
Folks the previous site was great, very typical blog setup that is well known and loved. This feels a bit like autoweek.com which I'm not a fan of.
Less Is More
Like many of the others, I don't like the new format.
KISS...keep it simple, stupid.
Anonymous
Howdy, congrats on launching your new venture. However, I'm seriously lost. I don't want to participate, I just want to read. You might post a link to a page with the old "blog" style. I really don't know what to do with the new site. Just give me a blog layout with the "new" content! Thanks.
Chris Paukert
Thank you all for your feedback both negative and positive. Keep it coming!
Please don't think that because we've added all of these neat new features that we've forgotten about our loyal Daily News Site readers. We are still actively refining a number of aspects on the site, but for those of you just looking for the latest news, I would humbly suggest an RSS feed or clicking on our "All" tab in the upper left-hand corner (see image below). This will give you a consolidated stream of NextAutos' latest-and-greatest posts without having to visit the different channels (i.e. Supercars, Unguzzle, etc.).
Chris Paukert
Editor-In-Chief
Winding Road // NextAutos
bavarian racing green
...i don't like the new site and particulary, the new name...
...though it obviously took a great deal work, i will probably remove this site from my daily reading...
...the old 'gabe-esque' style didn't need to be changed...
...now it's just hard to look at...
Wes
I don't particularly like this website either. I miss the old website and RSS feed. Not all of your users are car experts, and that's why people like me went to Winding Road to learn information about the latest news in the car industry. Even so, props for trying, and I'm really going to miss the RSS feed the most. What you could have done is kept the Winding Road website and had a separate forum instead of launching a whole new website and getting rid of windingroad.com all together. Just a thought.
Autoknologist
Well. I must say, I was a little surprised today when I clicked on my fav's link to winding road and this is where I ended up. Back when Winding Road first landed, I liked it. Alot. I liked the way I could read it on my screen like a magazine in my hand. It's user friendlyness degraded somewhat as WindingRoad evolved, but the info was always good, fast and up to date. Your pictures associated with reviews and tests on vehicles were always top notch (I hope this will continue) So, it will take me some time to get used to this new format. (Please, Please do something about how slow the site loads up. This could end up being a real handicap to growing a loyal reader base). Also, I am intrigued by the concept you have come up with where articles by proffessional writers and novices, such as myself, can be read side by side. Interested to see how extensive an article one will be allowed to post? (ie; pictures, videos, etc; like a real article) It will be interesting to see how this format plays out. I have been an enthusiast all my life and actually have alot I would like to say about the auto industry, cars, places, experiences related to cars. So, I look forward to place where I can share my knowledge, views and thoughts with others and vice versa. I hope your format will allow more detail than a blog would allow for a posting. I was an original subscriber to WindingRoad, have been a fan of David E. for many years, and will subscribe here as well.
I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
Autoknologist.
Anonymous
Are you aware that the full text for bookmarks for the previous site are now no longer accessible with the new site? This is really disappointing. I hope you can fix this.
Anonymous
I wanted a blog.
I read the beautiful magazine occasionally, while downloading each one, promising to read it.
This ain't what I want.
bye
X3SoB
Man, you took a perfectly good site and screwed it up! It jumps around when you try to scroll, it's harder to navigate, and you want us to write our own stories? Screw that. There are other sites. Goodbye.
X3SoB
And what the hell happened to the Question of the Day?!
Lee
@Will Patrick: You said it best. The new website is a big disappointment to me as well. I'll continue to read the magazine, but this website is coming out of my daily favs.
Anonymous
I really liked the news section. I don't even know where to look now. What is the second best auto news site? I'm switching.
Claudef2
I do not like the new web site at all. It looks to me that your perfectly great editorial content fell victim to technology run amok. Further, the loading time is horrendous, even with 6 Mbits of bandwidth.
Time for a rethink.
ML
Sorry, but I don't the new site. It's not well thought-out or executed. I will check your Webpage occasionally, but I'll stick with Autoblog and Jalopnik because of their format and ease of use. Nice try, however. Too bad it's not very well done.
Anonymous
What happened to "DAIlEY NEWS"? that was a great user friendly site...now i takes too long to go to each site & navigate them to get the same info. I ca n't just click on one icon & get all of the auto news. Please, please revise this bad bad "improvement".
Ducati Minor
I am taken back by the sheer quantity of the material (and the fact that, as I am typing this, some guy keeps coming on to me in the coffee shop), but the site is sluggish and the layout is cluttered. The old WR Daily News site was too limited, but this one needs work.
Aussie
What a shame. I really USED to look forward to reading Daily News in Winding Road. Without being too harsh, the whole feel of Winding Road has disappeared. It looks like a 10 year old website and that's not a compliment. I don't want to read every story, I want magazine quick snippets as per the Winding Road site. My advice, fix it quick or it will die very, very quickly.
lemoncurry
Chalk me up to the list of people who are unsatisfied with the new site.
1. I am not interested in motorsports, motorcycles or project cars. My interest spans the offerings of Winding Road (and even then not everything). I want to be able to narrow the content down to that and filter out all the extra stuff that was added when the sites merged.
2. I don't know what the problem is, but many of the pictures do not load, and if I want to view the next picture, THE WHOLE DAMN PAGE RELOADS!! Get your coding right so that I can quickly scroll through all the pictures without having to reload the already slow page. Fix the broken images!
Many people don't like when their "cheese" is moved, but the truth is that you have given us a much inferior product than the one we had at WR. Throw us a bone, please, or lose us to another site.
Anonymous
Geesh, I don't get the problem. Same great news and while the label may be a bit odd, you actually can see the same news in the 'all' section. Seems like a bunch of whiners. Lighten up.
Ducati Minor
Well, I see the problems, too. The layout, loading, and menus are hard to swallow. This is a big difference. After seeing the huge drop in the user comments and a mess of news stories, I think the WR staff made a mistake. This is up there with AutoWeek's removal of the Combustion Chamber and Car & Driver's new format (which I liked). I like the available text modification options, but the menus and lists have to be simplified and simplified soon.
If not, WR can expect to see the site lose the energy it once had. C&D reworked and cut back on the changes, but that resulted with a bag of junk articles and reviews slapped together. AW has just brought back the Chamber; yet, few have come back to what now appears to be just another message board. (Symbolizes the pathetic decline of AW and its desperation to regain web hits and readers.)
John
Slow, VERY slow!
Hoof Hearted
It must be pretty pathetic when Chris Paukert can't load a picture above his name and is pleading with posters to keep posting, positive or negative. I agree with you Ducati, Autoweek used to be my favorite site until they messed with it, now its not even in my favs. I think I'll leave this site as well, at jalopnik you can cuss if you want.
drewdraws2
This does not seem like something that's been worked on for months. When the site connects, it's incredibly slow. There are tons of broken links and I have to load pages over and over again to read a post. As for the design, well, it's awful. Amateur at best. The name? Even worse. Seen Driver's Republic? That looks like a site that someone put some real thought into.
I love the idea of a bleacherreport.com style car blog, but this is not it.
I'll stick to Jalopnik, still the best of the bunch. I was hoping for an upgrade of Winding Road (it was so close!). Unfortunately, "Next Autos" is a big step backwards instead.
Jim
I agree with the majority of responses - please g oback to your old format.
Anonymous
Add another one to the list... the new design sucks (sorry to be blunt). The old news site was my daily fix (as it was for others), but it looks like that's evaporated with a good bit of your readership.
Good luck... FWIW. Now I need to find a WR News replacement... >sigh<
Josh
Thanks above for the suggestions on alternative sites. I stumbled upon Winding Road from links on Fark.com, but I set it as a bookmark because I liked the way they presented the news in a simple list, with a place to comment about the article directly below. It's too bad the web"masters" had to "improve" things.
Now I'm off to check the others out.
Sorry NextAutos, you just lost another bookmark. Best of luck in the future.
P.S. Please send me an email if you ever return to something like your old format.
- Josh
Josh
Oh, wait, I found your old site, it's called Autoblog now. C'ya, NextAutos.
Ducati Minor
Hate to say it, but I'm going to check out the other sites. I'll come back sometime later and hope things have improved. This is chaotic.
Thanks for the suggested links, guys.
Andy
I would leave a comment but I can't read hardly any of the articles or see the pics because more than 50% of images are not loaded.
Remember the Simpsons episode when Homer unveiled the Homer-mobile and the crowd reacted with deep gasps and shock and horror? This is how we all felt when we visited this very badly put together site. For us and yourselves you need to fix it. This is the internet and someone will start up a new site and finish what you guys had done so well.
Friendly Car Guy
Honestly this is one of the worst user experiences I have seen on a site in a long time. So much clutter and so badly organized. One thing I know for sure, you guys must REALLY be car-guys because no professional user interface designer would allow this in front of the public. Back to the drawing board boys!
windyctyprog
I agree with every negative comment so far - this is an excruciatingly unreadable site now.
I have stayed with you, mainly because of David E. and the writers (I have followed David E. for some 30 years at every publication stop he made), even with the miserable technology issues you seem to have had since your inception a couple of years ago - I have never seen an on-line publication with as many technology problems and as many goofy attempts at deploying technology.
I have literally spent a year trying to delete one of your dowloaded "reader" .exe files - nobody in your support area can figure it out. It is still on my desktop! Your new registration process is also an experience - just miserable.
You were my first daily stop in the morning where I could get my car news fix - no longer.
Good luck with your launch, but ask your readers first next time, as I suspect they are generally an intelligent, astute and saavy bunch.
Also, find a CIO that understands the meaning of "user experience"...
chartguy
Another vote for the old website.
Unfortunately, this fix loves to think we're spammers, forcing us to read those distorted characters to post a message.
Beyond that, the news page on the old site worked. Here, everything is a pain to navigate. If it takes too long to find, why bother looking?
With the old site, it was a simple scroll to see all of the most recent news stories. Try that here.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'm sure the new "concept" sounded great in the meetings and planning stages, but honestly, the old site was more useful and attractive to users. You've built up quite a following of eyeballs. Do you really want to drive them off now?
Dang, it even thinks this is SPAM!
jc the cg
Hoof Hearted
I really like the Icons pasted over top of the text, nice touch. You guys are really going out of your way to alienate your fanbase.
Anonymous
Hoof Hearted - were you using FireFox when this happend? If you were, there apparently was a problem with FireFox 3.0 which they have now fixed...maybe that was what you were seeing?
Jonathan
I hope you are still working out the glitches because the site does not work very well. It is slow to reload and when clicking on pictures, it does not realign them on the screen. I think the new format and layout is ordinary - the graphics are boring and look similar to news layouts - ie, CNN or Time. I will come back for the next few weeks, but I may stick to Motor Authority.
BTW, I am one who welcomes change - but not just for change's sake. Your old layout worked better and the graphics more interesting.
Hoof Hearted
To
Avoid
Icon
Pastover
........
I've been monitoring how the new site is doing, and I've got to say, it still sucks... BADLY. It's very telling that comment counts range from 2 to ZERO, despite Views in the hundreds (with the exception of Seyth's recent Question of the Day, I mean, Month). Fix your problems or your View numbers will dwindle as well.
Hoof Hearted
To
Avoid
Icon
Pastover
__________
So, I now see that your View numbers are dipping down into the double digits, just as I predicted they would. You really don't have a complaint area where people can comment on this clusterfck, and I see this post has fallen off your roles. So... this is my last post, I'm following everybody else to Jalopnik and Autoblog. Goodbuy.
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