How far would you go to build your brand? Would you turn your website’s homepage into a snaphot of what people are saying about your product via a twitter feed if you knew it would generate buzz and make your website go “viral?” That’s what the marketers of Skittles were banking on when they launched their new homepage. Check it out.
In just a few hours, Skittles has became the number one topic discussed on Twitter, a social networking community that reaches over 4 million users monthly. Skittles is also integrating other online social networks. The “Friends” navigation button links to their Facebook fan page and their "News" page links to their YouTube page.
While Skittles has already generated some earned media about their new creative campaign to build their brand and be transparent, will this tactic increase sales? Is using Twitter even the right target demographic given that 47% of users are between the ages of 18-34 and 31% are between the ages of 35-49? For example some of the tweets have nothing to do with the actual candy but are using the Skittles hashtag to promote their own
campaigns or ideas. “ProIraqi Refugees need your help. Click here to sign the petition: #Skittles. [Please RT!), or “WFMU Fundraising Marathon now underway. Tune in: or pledge at wfmu.org #Skittles."
Other people on twitter are just talking about the creativity behind the campaign from a marketing and branding perspective and question how long the buzz will really last. At the end of the day Skittles needs to sale candy and make sure it does not fall off of consumers radar. Will turning their website into snapshots of their online social networks do the trick?
The term Web 2.0 is getting a bad wrap these days. Some influential bloggers are tired of hearing the term being thrown around left and right and of people marketing themselves as Web 2.0 experts. On Valentine’s Day TechCrunch posted an article saying that Web 2.0 is dying for two main reasons:
1. The number of startups that contact them and include the term Web 2.0 in the subject line or message has decreased. 2. Google Trends shows the search term Web 2.0 peaking in 2007 and then falling back to the level it reached in early 2006 today.
Just to make sure we are on the same page let’s quickly define Web 2.0 - the collaboration and evolution of communities on the web such as social networking sites, niche sharing sites, etc. Are online communities like Twitter and video sharing sites like YouTube dying?
According to Quantcast in the last six months:
• Twitter has grown from a community of 1.1 million people to 4.1 million. • Facebook has grown from over 36 million to over 64 million. • Flickr has grown from approximately 22 million to 24.3 million. • LinkedIn has seen a decline over the past 3 months. In November they had an estimated 24 million and it dropped to 18.3 million in February. • MySpace has seen a decline in web traffic. They went from over 70 million to 67.9 million. • Ning has grown from over 2.2 million to 6.2 million. • SecondLife has grown from over 900,000 to 1.3 million. • YouTube has grown from over 72 million to 77.9 million – although they did experience some dips in traffic from October - December.
Overall the big social networking communities are continuing to grow as more people dive into the “Web 2.0 world” and want to be a part of these communities or use their tools. While LinkedIn and MySpace’s traffic decreased it does not signify the end of these two social networking sites. MySpace is ranked as the 8th most trafficked site followed by Facebook ranked at number 9. LinkedIn is ranked at number 86.
Perhaps the reason the search term "Web 2.0" has leveled off in Google Trends is because more and more people understand the definition of Web 2.0. For example, blogger Asif Anwar pointed out, that Google Trends shows the word "Internet" peaking in 2004 and declining between 2005 and 2008. Obviously the Internet is not dying.
Sometimes terms in the tech and online marketing industry become buzzwords and that turns people off because it becomes too trendy. But let’s keep this in perspective. At the end of the day, Web 2.0 is just a term Tim O’Reilly coined to describe the collaboration and evolution of communities. While it’s not going away anytime soon, Web 2.0 will evolve and transform just like everything else on the web. Just wait until the Web 4.0 revolution. It’s going to knock your socks off :)
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Allyson Kapin is the Founding Partner of Rad Campaign and Women Who Tech. She is also the Editor-In-Chief of Care2's nonprofit tech and online marketing Frogloop blog. You can follow her on Twitter.
As negotiations in Congress on the stimulus bill are nearing the final stage, some attention is being given to the parts of the competing bills aimed at increasing access to broadband. The final numbers on the broadband provisions will probably come in around $6-$7 billion, which in the context of a massive $800 billion+ package doesn't seem like much. But is it really worth it?
Most of the money is slated to come in the form of tax breaks for companies that expand the reach of their broadband and improve their networks to deliver better speeds to the end user. Laudable goals, but should taxpayers really foot the bill to subsidize work that companies would likely perform anyway? There are provisions in both the House and Senate proposals that would open the door for new companies to become involved in delivering broadband and encourage more openness and innovation - which would be a great thing for those of us who would like to see such things.
But this just points out a larger problem. Where is there a national communications policy? If these proposals go through we may get more and faster broadband and many under-served communities may have access they lacked before, but how are they going to connect? Who's going to buy them the computers or mobile devices they need to truly take advantage? How will they afford the cost of service?
Without an overall plan to improve our communications infrastructure and address the barriers to access that exist, there's little hope that this "broadband stimulus" will have much effect. What we need is far more sweeping change that recognizes openness and access as rights instead of priveleges.
-- By Jared Seltzer, Founding Partner of Rad Campaign
There’s a cultural shift happening on Capitol Hill. Thanks to President Obama and newer Members of Congress who have demonstrated how to successfully connect with supporters using Web 2.0 tools, more and more Congressional Members are diving into the Web 2.0 world.
According to Ellen Miller, Executive Director of the Sunlight Foundation, “Government is among the last groups of people to figure this out, but the change is coming fast now. Soon enough, it will seem quaint for a lawmaker to not fully engage with constituents using the communications tools available. I'm sure none want to wind up like former Senator Jim Exon, who was the last Member of Congress with an office filled with typewriters.”
In the winter of 2008 the Republicans launched The Republican New Media Caucus to assist House Republicans in ramping up their Web 2.0 efforts with briefings and recommendations.
“By engaging both Members and staff, we are working to bring awareness to everyone and emphasize Web 2.0’s importance.Providing both education and tangible skill development we hope to make it easier for Members and staff to transition in these new mediums.Our constituents have also reciprocated this effort by responding to our efforts, further encouraging us to expand the use of Web 2.0 and online tools to directly communicate with them,” said Congressman Bob Latta who represents Ohio’s 5th Congressional District.
Miller says it’s important for lawmakers to understand the benefits of using social media and their own official websites to improve transparency and communication and citizen engagement in their work.
Latta agrees and adds “Real time communication applications, like Twitter and Facebook, provide Members of Congress an ability to receive feedback from their constituents even as the debate is taking place on the floor of the House.”
Although there is a lot of excitement around Web 2.0 there is a learning curve, particularly for Members and some staffers who are unfamiliar with the Web and with the rules that govern lawmakers' Web use. “The latter has a kind of chilling effect, out of uncertainty regarding compliance with rules and fear of unintended consequences (e.g., hecklers commenting on blog posts),” said Miller.
Miller raises an excellent point. Just yesterday the Twitter community got a chuckle out of one tweet that read “Can you fax this to Twitter?”
As Congress attempts to play catch up and adapt to the rapidly changing world of technology and Web 2.0, it will be vital for them to invest in New Media staff.
“With so many people now getting their news strictly online, we are constantly finding new ways to promote our agenda and communicate directly with constituents though interactive avenues online.President Obama set the bar high with this online communications effort, and House Republicans are now working to establish a strategy that is organic and engaging in order to allow us to rapidly define our vision for America as demanded by the 24-hour news cycle,” said Congressman Latta.
The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, uses a blog to highlight legislation and the daily work of Congress. The blog also includes YouTube videos of floor debates. She is also on Twitter and joined by about 50 Members of Congress.
Representatives Tim Ryan who represents Ohio’s 17th District and John Lewis who represents Georgia’s 5th District use Google Maps to highlight important locations in their districts, including hospitals, airports and their district offices.
Representative George Miller who represents California’s 5th District asks constituents to send video questions about important public policy issues, which he answers in his own video responses.
One of the slickest Web 2.0 tools that Congress uses is the US House of Representatives channel on YouTube which is comprised of a google mashup of state districts and links to Congressional Members videos on YouTube.
The bottom line is that Congress has no choice but to embrace Web 2.0. It’s a cheap and easy way to connect with constituents. Furthermore, through Web 2.0 “members can foster a more dynamic and productive relationship by sharing their work in a way that creates an ongoing, public conversation,” said Miller.
On a December Wednesday morning Scott Monty, Ford Motor Company’s social media strategist (aka Global Digital and Multi-Media Communications Manager) woke up to a potential PR nightmare and it had nothing to do with the bailout. Ford was threatening to sue The Ranger Station, a fan website run by Jim Oakes that was selling counterfeit products using Ford’s logo. Ford was demanding that The Ranger Station surrender its website URL and pay Ford $5,000 in damages. Oakes sent out a call for help and blogged “TRS is being attacked by the Ford Motor Company.” Ford instantly felt the backlash as the fan community quickly caught wind of the lawsuit and began blogging and tweeting angry comments. Monty jumped on Twitter, followed the chatter and sent tweets to his 5600 followers saying “I’m in active discussions with our legal department to resolve it. Please retweet.”
Being the communications pro and problem solver that he is, Monty called Oakes to get his side of the story and worked out an agreement between Ford’s legal department and Oakes. Following the agreement, Monty tweeted it and Oakes blogged about it.
Ford dodged a major bullet that Wednesday not only because of Monty’s rapid response using social media tools but because he was honest about the events as they unfolded. Instead of playing the CYA game and constantly defending Ford’s position with legal jargon he blogged comments such as “I’m on it…. Trying to stop a PR nightmare.” Monty says his transparent approach helped Ford. “My greatest fear was that people would be more interested in retweeting Ford's seemingly heavy-handed legal actions than they would about the correction,” said Monty. But “taken as a whole, all of my efforts bore the hallmark of a real person interacting with the community throughout, and I think to those who witnessed it happening, it made a huge difference. The firestorm was quashed almost as quickly as it developed.”
When Monty was hired by Ford in July of 2008 to spearhead their social media strategy, senior management welcomed him with open arms. “There seemed to be a sense of relief and enthusiasm, rather than the head-scratching and upselling that you might normally expect in such a situation,” said Monty.
Monty was immediately tasked with making Ford the world's leading social automotive brand. So what’s Monty’s big plan? “Create content and set it free, allowing anyone who is interested to be able to share it on any of the major platforms, on a global basis. Internally, we’re going to connect Ford employees with each other and empower any employee who wants to be an online spokesperson for the company,” said Monty.
Social media tools that Ford has had success with include social media press releases which features YouTube videos and Creative Commons-licensed photos on Flickr. “We're lucky enough to have fans from all over the world who create pages dedicated to our company and products on Facebook and Twitter so we interact there as members of the community,” said Monty.
So how does Ford measure its return on investment in the social media world? One of the tools that Ford uses is a proprietary tool that its agency, the Social Media Group developed called the Conversation Index. It covers 100 representative blogs and media ranging from Autoblog.com to Leftlanenews.com, measuring how Ford stacks up in a dozen areas and compares it to their competition (notably Honda & Toyota), in terms of frequency of mention, as well as sentiment. Ford follows the trends on a monthly basis and is able to discern areas where Ford is pulling ahead or lacking. “It's important to monitor what's being said about you. If you're not watching the online conversations, you could be missing a lot,” said Monty.
Remember when Friendster was the bee’s knees? Then it was beaten out of the market by MySpace. Facebook and YouTube fever came next. Now it’s Twitter - the micro-blogging platform has revolutionized the way over 3 million monthly users and businesses communicate online and build relationships with their customers, friends, and colleagues.
Twitter is teaching corporate America how to build social capital and empowering their consumers to help build their brand. It’s giving everyday people who are quite knowledgeable on topics ranging from the latest tech gadgets to parenting a platform to share their expertise with the Twitter world and gain some fame. And it’s not just the Guy Kawasaki’s of the world who have thousands of followers. While Twitter has had a great run, 2009 will be the year that Twitter gets it together or falls. Let’s face it, Twitter has weaknesses and it goes beyond the fail whale that pops up daily.
Customer support needs to be overhauled. Granted, when there is a major tech catastrophe that poses a security risk (such as the recent phishing scams and celebrity Twitter accounts hackings) to the Twitter community, the Twitter team is quick to respond and fix it. However, if you have an issue with your Twitter account, good luck getting it fixed in a timely manner or having someone respond to your inquiry.
The competition is creeping up. Now that the online world has seen how successful Twitter is there are other tech savvy, businesses who are preparing to give Twitter a run for their money. They recognize Twitter’s weaknesses and are working on providing an even stronger platform that allows users to group and categorize their followers, easily integrate microblogging onto users own sites, etc. For example, Laconica is a open-source microblogging software that allows anyone with a webserver or hosting account to set up their own microblogging system using a stable platform. Since it’s open-source, you’ll probably see a host of add-ons incorporated directly into it rather than having to rely on third-party sites using Twitter’s API.
Twitter as a company is not accessible. Since they don’t really have a communications department it can be a challenge to reach anyone at Twitter since there is no contact info listed on their site other then their street address. Their “Press Inquires” email link has not worked in a while and brings you to an “About Us” page. E-newsletter updates are infrequent. Twitter’s blog is the only tool staff uses on a consistent basis to provide updates to the Twitter community. However, the blog does not allow user comments.
How is Twitter building community as a company? For a company whose mission is to build a platform to create community why aren’t employees engaging the Twitter community? For example, founder Biz Stone is the public face of Twitter. He authors the enewsletter and main blog, is profiled by the press, and has close to 30,000 people following him on Twitter yet he is only following 168 people back. With all of the Twitter tools on the market such as Tweetdeck that allow you to sort your followers and group them, you would think Stone would carve out a little time to get to know the community he built Twitter for. And yes he’s busy and in demand but as a business leader it’s important to engage your community. Zappos is a perfect example. Now this is a company that gets online community building and it trickles down to the employees. Perhaps, Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh can mentor Twitter. He’s started a consulting firm called Zappos Insights to help businesses gain insights on how to successfully manage a company in a Web 2.0 world.
Times are tough and no matter how bad things get, I believe technology and social media will transform the world. When disaster strikes, people who work in technology and social media jump in and pool their network’s skill sets to organize online campaigns to collect donations and share information and resources. Meet the latest two heroes Matt Stempeck and Jaki Greer. Stempeck launched TheyNeedUsNow.org to help funnel money to several non-profit organizations that lost major funding due to Bernard Madoff’s pyramid scheme. Greer organized an online fundraising drive promoted on her LiveJournal page to help her neighbor and friend raise $10K so the bank would not foreclose on their house in December.
When the Madoff pyramid scheme was uncovered it not only hurt Wall Street investors, but major foundations that funded non-profits all over the world. Foundations that supported hundreds of non-profits went out of business overnight leaving many organizations with major budget deficits. “He's actually put Ponzi, the namesake of the pyramid scheme, to shame,” said Stempeck. “It’s hard to wrap my head around the sheer amount of critical funding that has disappeared overnight. But rather than let it paralyze me into inaction, I threw myself into making TheyNeedUsNow.org. It felt good to be doing something about it, even if it's very small in the big picture.”
The JEHT foundation based in New York was one of the foundations whose major donors had a large chunk of their funding invested with Madoff. Two weeks ago they told grantees that they would cease all grants and close shop in January. The Innocence Project, a non-profit organization that advocates for falsely accused prisoners through DNA testing, lost 12.5% of their 2009 budget due to JEHT’s closing. Despite the budget shortfall “we’re optimistic that individual donors will continue coming forward to offset the loss of JEHT funding”, says Audrey Levitin, Director of Development at the Innocence Project. Other organizations are not so optimistic. The Center for Public Representation is suspending its national juvenile justice reform project because it lost its $700K grant from the JEHT foundation.
While Stempeck is constantly updating the site with more non-profits that have been impacted by the Madoff scheme, he’s also thinking of ways for non-profits to help each other. “I would like to see a central space or a group where the many, many affected non-profits could connect with one another and share strategies for coping with the fall-out.”
Just before Thanksgiving, Greer posted an entry on her LiveJournal page entitled “Help a Family Keep their Home.” Greer talked about how her friends Ebony and Daniel Sampson were about to loose their home if they could not come up with $10K by December 8th. Ebony was a stay at home mom, caring for their two children, one with special needs that required medical care and special schooling. Daniel had recently lost his job. Ebony was also expecting a third child. Greer wrote “This bothers me because it shouldn't happen to them. It shouldn't be happening to anyone. But it hits me personally because she's done so much to help so many people. After all, they're both ministers who scraped together the money they had to help other people and now they don't have anyone to turn to.”
Greer asked her followers to donate money to a fund she setup through Paypal. Her Paypal tagline read. “10,000 hits. $10,000. Please donate $1. Help Daniel and Ebony keep their home.”
Greer also launched an aggressive local media campaign. She called local news stations and asked them to do a human interest story on Ebony and Daniel Sampson’s dire situation. She asked fellow bloggers to reach out to the local news stations as well and blog about the Sampsons and the fundraising campaign. Furthermore, Greer invested time engaging her followers on LiveJournal by responding to their comments and updating them on the status of reaching the $10K goal. Greer’s plan worked. Within 48 hours bloggers posted articles about the Sampsons’ story and Channel 11 WBALTV did a profile about the effort to help them raise $10K to pay their over due mortgage. Greer met her $10K fundraising goal in just four days.
Power to the people, technology, and social media.
Where do you get your local news these days? With more and more newspapers going bankrupt or cutting staff, it seems like the web is more and more the only place to get info about what's going on in your neighborhood/town/city. Loads of websites have stepped up to fill the void, but many individual blogs or small news sites can't quite make the cut because they don't have enough staff or access.
That's where Everyblock.com comes in. What if you went right to the source? Most cities log all sorts of information into online databases and many of those are actually open to the public. Everyblock takes local data such as crime data, city service requests, and construction projects, and lets you view it by location - address, zip, neighborhood, etc. In addition, Everyblock brings in online news articles, photos, real estate listings and business reviews to give you a detailed picture of all that's going on around you.
Started in early 2008 using a grant from the Knight Foundation, the project has expanded throughout the course of 2008, and is now active in 11 cities: Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Washington, DC. More cities will come as more and more data becomes available.
Everyblock is likely the first of many projects like this. As the web expands more and more into our daily lives, the logical direction is for sites to focus in on our daily lives or at least at what surrounds our daily lives - news and events where we live.
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By Jared Seltzer, Founding Partner of Rad Campaign
2008 was the year that Web 2.0 became more mainstream. More ad agencies, businesses, and non-profits used Web 2.0 tools as a way to build community and relationships, cross promote products and issues, and integrate their online and offline marketing strategies. Some like Zappos were extremely successful and nailed their Web 2.0 strategy while others like the makers of Motrin were burned by mommy bloggers for not doing proper research on their target audience.
With the economy in a slump and budgets being cut in traditional print and TV advertising campaigns many will be looking to the Web 2.0 world to reach their constituents. So what should be on your Web 2.0 radar for 2009? Web 2.0 gurus give you the low down.
Chris Brogan: New Marketing Labs “2009 sees a few things: site mergers/acquisitions for some of the weaker social network platforms, and a stronger push towards identity portability and friend (social graph) portability. We love our social networks, but why should I suddenly develop amnesia when you and I join a new one? It should know we're friends and treat us accordingly.”
Mary Hodder, Founder of Dabble.com and VP of Product Development, Apisphere
“The future of social media is user's owning their data, deciding who to send it to. Look for more companies that currently host the user's identity to have less control over that, as things like Open ID take over and more companies try to compete by giving users more control over themselves. Look for ways users can own their own data, and companies that might offer that, sort of like a personal information bank. The changes may seem subtle but I think we'll see companies now, like Facebook, who try to be everything to you: your bank account for info, your identity, your tools for publishing, and your bar/restaurant for socializing, having to give up some of those roles or hold them less powerfully. And I don't think it's natural for one company to hold all that power. It leaves you with very little control over your online self.
Of course, Facebook will fight this to the last, so they won't be the first to give up some of this control. Others will and eventually to compete Facebook will follow. But they are the great example of the problem.
The other big change will be in companies finally building for revenue in the social and any other space online, as they build for growth in their free or social products.”
Tara Hunt, Co-Founder Citizen Agency and Citizen Space “Social Media will cease to be such an 'experimental' field in marketing and will start to become part of the main core of good campaigns. Web 2.0 is the participatory web - which means that the power of this time is that we are all producers. In former days of marketing, companies delivered messages and goods and customers were meant to consume them. Not so much any longer. Customers are major players in the arena of marketing - I would argue more so than the marketing professionals themselves now - so it is important to realize that and shift the marketing program to be more about how you interact and empower those customers rather than how you control and spread the message.”
Charlene Li, Consultant and Blogger “The biggest innovation will be the opening of social networks so that they can exchange profiles, social relationships, and applications. As such, companies need to think about how they will "open" up their businesses. For example, rather than create your own community, could you leverage a community that already exists on MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn?”
Susan Mernit, Co-Founder, People Software “I see social media in 2009 becoming more and more accessible to mainstream audiences. Twitter, seesmic, YouTube and other tools we saw as playgrounds for the young have moved into the digerati toolbox and are migrating to the mainstream. This means that everyone will experience what bloggers and gamers learned at least 5 years ago--following people online is a great way to virtually know and screen potential contacts and friends, as well as a tool to maintain connections. As for tech, I'm excited about personal devices--smart phones, integrated devices--I want to see them come down in price and go into wider distribution so people don't need to rely so much on computers.”
Rebecca Moore, Director of Outreach, Google Earth “From a mapping perspective, you can expect to see much richer integration of "location-aware" services with a variety of devices. For example, mobile devices (such as those powered by Android) now commonly include GPS. Of course this can be used for applications like "find pizza places near me", but also can be used, for example, when a natural disaster hits. Imagine that local people on the ground will be able to easily map and share where bridges are out, roads are closed, or where emergency shelters and medical care are available. Keep in mind that in the developing world, people have far more phones than laptops.
In terms of social media, I think we are just at the beginning of "collaborative mapping" - people working together with friends and colleagues to build shared maps of places they care about. Also, the grassroots environmental organization Appalachian Voices has combined social networking and mapping in an interesting way on their advocacy site to end mountaintop-removal coal mining: here's a map of all the people referred to the site by actor/activist Woody Harrelson, including their "degree of separation" from Woody. We might be seeing more "social maps" like this in 2009.”
Nate Ritter: Entrepreneur and Web Developer “The biggest changes have already started, but we'll see the tech take shape and make more money in 2009. They'll make money because they'll be forced to with the drying up of available VC and angel capital.
(1) Location based services will proliferate and become more useful to the end user.
(2) Aggregation services will change from just "drinking from the fire hose" to become very specific aggregation tools, perhaps with very specific use cases. The amount of data we can consume as humans stays limited, but filtering that data to become useful for specific reasons is not only something that's doable, it has an incentive... targeted customers. Those customers might be businesses or consumers, but the days of shooting from the hip with a shotgun approach are quickly ending. Shooting from the hip will stay, because it's fast, easy and cheap (and will get faster, easier, and cheaper) to build web applications. But being fast doesn't mean you're being smart.
I truly believe that 2009 is a huge opportunity. The bigger the threat, the bigger the opportunity.”
Richard Yoo, Founder of Hush Labs and former CEO of Rackspace Hosting “I'm not sure that things will evolve the way people have seen in the past. I predict that it'll mostly be about trying to figure out what users really want and what they find most important then fine-tuning things based on that feedback. The pace of evolution may really slow down by comparison, but the user experience will be far better.
We'll also see a shakedown of Web 2.0 companies - some will survive, but many will just shut down. The ones that survive will have figured out a revenue model, or are simply critical to their user base's day-to-day lives.”
Neil Young, yes that Neil Young, has a new gig and it has nothing to do with music. The Linc Volt project aims to "Repower the American Dream", by proving that a zero-emission, electric vehicle is possible, economical and easy to implement. To that end Young and his team have been adapting Neil's 1959 Lincoln Continental, using already existing technologies, into a self-charging electric vehicle, running on natural gas and getting 100mpg! They're already up to 65mpg - remember a Lincoln Continental is a 2.5 ton vehicle.
By showing that todays cars can be adapted using clean technology Neil and crew are trying to show the way forward for the auto industry as a whole. As Neil recently said on the Huffington Post, "It is time to change and our problems can facilitate our solutions. We can no longer afford to continue down Detroit's old road. The people have spoken. They do not want gas guzzlers (although they still like big cars and trucks). It is possible to build large long-range vehicles that are very efficient. People will buy those vehicles because they represent real change and a solution that we can live with."
And the innovation doesn't just stop with the car. Linc Volt has teamed up with SalesForce to set up a new site at lincvolt.force.com which uses SalesForce technology to build community around the project. Site visitors can submit ideas and vote on other user's ideas - the most popular of which will get incorporated into the project (if possible). Visitors can also share photos of themselves and their cars - cars they'd like to Linc Volt when the project is finalized. In a sense, Neil and crew are crowd-sourcing innovation. It's a great move, especially in what they would like to turn into a grassroots movement.
You can see the car and hear Neil talk about it at this SalesForce event here. It's a bit infomercial-like, but the technology is fascinating and the car is absolutely a work of art.
For more on the Linc Volt project, read our feature "Motorhead Messiah" from 2007.
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By Jared Seltzer, Founding Partner of Rad Campaign
