Editor's note: OAR will be taking a break for the holidays.  Please look for new postings starting January 5, 2009.  
In retrospect, it’s clear that 2008 was finally the year that the automotive mobile Internet started to gain traction.  There are nearly a dozen fully functional mobile automotive ... Read More »

Dealers, General Managers and General Sales Managers, this is where the accountability starts: You and Process. I've not yet entered a store where the Internet business excelled despite management (ok, for more than one month). Heading into 2009, you must understand all of the fundamentals, be able to speak to the ... Read More »

Bob Garfield, contributor and ad critic for the Advertising Age website, recently wrote a great article regarding Web widgets: “Why aren’t more advertisers using them?” There are a lot of interesting and noteworthy examples in his article. For example, he mentions Southwest’s desktop application ... Read More »

It took over a decade, but Internet video is finally mainstream.  Data from eMarketer shows that 80% of Internet users viewed video in 2008, up from 74% in 2007.  Video has long been part of the automotive Internet experience, since it’s a great mechanism to demonstrate vehicles in action: see them, hear ... Read More »

Automotive mobile sites have quickly become valuable consumer resources, allowing shoppers to get information efficiently from a variety of devices.  Over time, as more consumers own more powerful mobile devices with higher cellular data speeds, we will inevitably see more sites with more robust functionality, ... Read More »

For most of the past half-century, dealerships – like most businesses – required only a telephone to keep in touch with prospective and existing customers.  While many dealerships still rely primarily on the telephone, email also has a major role. Consumers, on the other hand, go well beyond these two ... Read More »

Q. What prompted your decision to add research tools (such as compare vehicles, configure vehicles, payment calculator, and trade-in estimator) to your sites? We have always considered our main “hub site”, LAcarGUY.com, as a site that can answer all of your automotive needs. Visitors can browse the ... Read More »