When we first registered our URL (www.fleetowner.com) and launched Fleet Owner Online in 1996, our goal was quite limited. We posted news stories from the International Trucking Show in Las Vegas just to see if readers were interested in receiving information via this new thing called the World Wide Web.
A surprising number of people visited that first Web attempt, so we repeated the effort at the Mid-America Trucking Show in early 1997. Once again, people came to see what we posted from the show floor in Louisville. Encouraged by the trucking community's interest in the new medium, we quickly launched a full-time Web site largely based on archived material from previous issues of the magazine.
One of our first Web lessons was that things move fast when you enter Internet time. It became clear that reprinting the magazine on the Web wasn't enough to justify our presence on the Internet. Our third-generation site included databases that could be searched for supplier names and addresses, as well as stories written just for the site by the magazine's staff.
As traffic continued to grow, we decided in 1999 that it was time to step up to the plate and make a significant commitment to our Internet product. By the end of that year we had launched a fourth generation of Fleet Owner Online with an editorial staff dedicated solely to the site. With help from FLEET OWNER's magazine editors, our new Web editor, Tim Parry, was soon running one of the trucking industry's premier news sources, with up-to-the-minute stories appearing throughout the day.
By all accounts, the online news site has been a success. But the Internet is a restless place, so this month we launched the fifth generation of Fleet Owner Online.
The new version offers a stream of industry news, as well as a searchable archive of articles published in the magazine over the last four years. More importantly, it offers access to a vast database of news from another 70-plus business magazines owned by our parent, Intertec Publishing, as well as from a variety of general business sources such as the Associated Press and Reuters. There are job banks, business research reports and training resources. And as we go to press, the finishing touches are being put on a suppliers directory that can lead you to thousands of sources for just about any business service or product you can imagine.
But that's just the beginning of the new site's capabilities. We're now part of a family of B2B information sites known as IndustryClick (www.industryclick.com). Covering everything from agriculture to waste, IndustryClick adds broad resources and expertise to FLEET OWNER's specialized knowledge of trucking. In the next few months, you'll see a wide range of new features and services as we begin to take advantage of these resources.
If you haven't been among the regulars at www.fleetowner.com, I invite you to visit the great-great grandchild of our first Web site. The only thing that's remained the same is our commitment to bring you objective business news and analysis that can help you run a truck fleet. That's been FLEET OWNER's mission since 1928, and it isn't going to change just because we have a new kid to show off.
E-mail: [email protected]
Web site: www.fleetowner.com
