Help Us Help Hemmings
I spoke with a
Hemmings editor today. A fellow by the name of Dan Strohl. We have been invited to begin submitting a puzzle once a week for them to use in their blog. It will be credited and linked to us. We need to use pics that we have permission to use via owner or copyright. I need submissions of pics of cars that fit this description. We can always start requesting permission from people when we find good pics to use. In the meantime, I need some pics to submit. Can anyone help me? If you can please respond here and let me know and send me via email or pm the pic and the info on the car.
Help!!! This is our big break as a website and I cannot do it alone!!!
The following is the text of the emails that helped get this started:
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Oncina II
Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2007 1:41 PM
To:
dstrohl@hemmings.com Subject: Re: Thanking you for mentioning AutoPuzzles.
>Daniel,
>
>I would like to thank you for mentioning us in your blog in reference to
>grobmotorix's identification of the Dan LaLee hardtop convertible. If I
>can ever be of service to you in any fashion, please let me know. I
>believe the synergies between Hemmings and AutoPuzzles make that service
>a distinct possiblity. Let me know if you would like to discuss some of
>my ideas.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Charles Oncina II
>President, AutoPuzzles.com.
Daniel Strohl wrote:
>Charles-
>Of course, you provided a clue, so I felt an update was in order.
>
>You do seem to have some interesting puzzles up there. Where do the pictures
>come from?
>
>And I'd be happy to hear some of your ideas. I'm in and out of the office at
>random times, so feel free to put together an email with your ideas and we
>can discuss.
>
>thanks,
>dan
>
Daniel,
The puzzles are procured and posted by our website members.
AutoPuzzles mission is, in essence, a research project designed to create a worldwide community of experts at the identification of classic and esoteric automobiles. It is a non-commercial, non-profit mission with the long term goal of creating a virtual encyclopedia of esoteric automotive knowledge.
In order for the AutoPuzzles mission to succeed, what I need to receive for this site is increased awareness across the worldwide automotive community. What we have to offer to Hemmings to try to convince them to help support our mission includes access to and the rights to use our Feature Articles in any way beneficial to the Hemmings publishing group, access to our membership and cross-links on the pages of our site highlighting our partnership in the furthering of AutoPuzzles mission. In return, I would love to see something like the following somewhere besides my forum signatures:
Click here to name that car
Click the pic, name the car
I think a small slug-in like the above linking AutoPuzzles to Hemmings would look good on Hemmings pages. The pic updates almost everyday and would help to give your site fresh content and a fresh look on a regular basis.
If any of this sounds like something you would like to discuss further or if you have any other ideas regarding our working together to increase awareness of both of our sites, I would love to continue the conversation further. Let me know what you think via phone or email.
Sincerely,
Charles Oncina II
Charles-
I'm thinking there's three distinct opportunities here.
* First, of course, is the Hemmings blog (blog.hemmings.com, where we posted the pictures of the mystery retractable). We're always looking for quality content there and could develop a regular feature in conjunction with AutoPuzzles.com. I'm thinking weekly, either Fridays or Saturdays, with a short write-up about the car (about a paragraph: where the picture came from, hints and/or clarifications) from you or the submitter.
* Second and third, in both Hemmings Classic Car and Hemmings Sports and Exotics, two of our print magazines, we run columns called Lost and Found, in which we do essentially the same thing you do at AutoPuzzles - dig up photos of odd cars and ask our readers to identify them. I run the L&F column for HCC, while David LaChance runs the L&F column for HSX (I've cc'd him on this email). I'm up to my eyeballs in reader submissions right now; David less so. But we both see AutoPuzzles as a great resource to tap into from time to time for the L&F columns.
In both cases, we would provide links back to AutoPuzzles.com. In both cases, we would also be most interested in fresh content that hasn't appeared on AutoPuzzles or elsewhere previously.
My major concern is, of course, copyright. Not so much of AutoPuzzles providing the materials to Hemmings, but more of where the photos originate and whether your submitters have full copyrights to the photos.
That said, I think we can make this work and we can all benefit from it.
dan
