Marketing Campaigns Of The Apocalypse

i tawt i taw a puddy tat

Is that different from a "Bleeping" car?

mike

The new Ford Tweety, and they're all yellow. Nut free zone optional.

So when you see someone driving by themselves in a car talking up a storm, how are we to tell if its just a twit(ter), or a real nut job behind the wheel?

I find it hard to believe Ford is responding to consumer demand. Is twitter really that large a part of our existence? For those who have the time on their hands to "twitter" all day, are they really fluid enough to be buying new cars?

I'm on board if this is used for a sting operation whereby anyone who tries to buy the feature immediately loses their license forever.

It is shit like this that guarantees an Islamic win over the West.

It's more about reading tweets rather than posting them. For example, if you're subscribed to a feed that specializes in, say, local traffic, you can get immediate information on road conditions, accidents and speed traps.

Or, for Abe, he can subscribe to a feed that will warn him of any stray Korans on the road, allowing him to dodge or run over them as he pleases.

The Sync system in my Ford truck is amazing, and this looks like another decent step forward.

Only some twit could come up with this tweet.

"It's more about reading tweets rather than posting them. For example, if you're subscribed to a feed that specializes in, say, local traffic, you can get immediate information on road conditions, accidents and speed traps."

What could be more important than that?

Now these cars will have a collectors value one day.

I thought that Ford had the best chance to survive until now.

I suppose they are appealing to the ipod generation. and those that walk the mall texting nonsense to each other.

"It's more about reading tweets rather than posting them." Somehow, I don't think that is the case. Unless they plan on hands free tweeting out this is nothing more than an (accident) lawsuit waiting to happen. someone is going to tweet themselves into the back end of a Pinto and burst into flames, twittering all the way.

I'd be more worried about the car posting tweets on my behalf. Nothing like notifying people that you're not at home (or work) but in your car.

How long before the car starts ratting you out to the police for speeding?

Great, I'll get a Tweet account and keep sending out "Your door is a jar".

Love the one liners here!

One from the other site, "you're tweeting me, right?"

I always thought my door was metal. Sigh, miss the old 80's Lebarons.

"Plate# IMATWIT...move the hell over it's a posted 110kmh zone. Not a 70knh zone."

or

"Plate# DUMLIB...see that truck coming? Didn't think so."

Glad I'm not the only one old enough to remember the talking Chrysler K-car variants of the early 1980s.
Played a trick on a couple I was helping pick out a new care, we were taking a Plymouth Caravelle out for a test drive, and just before we left the dealer lot I shouted out:
"When is a door not a door?"
Then opened my door and the car answered back:
"A door is a jar!"
It freaked my friends out, but they did end up buying the car and played the trick on many more people.
Ahh, good times, when life and cars were simpler.

Most annoying car I ever owned was a talking Chrysler model that kept telling me that my door was a jar.

ashton kutcher generation
will change the world

Micosoft SYNC'd FORD

watch for this soon @ Gov't Motors, with former M$ CFO as new GM CFO.

Chris S. said: "How long before the car starts ratting you out to the police for speeding?"

Dude, get with the program. Your car rats to the cops and has done ever since the auto computers went to OBD-II. They can download the last 30 seconds of data before the car shuts off from everything made after about 1995 or so.

Many US states have laws -forbidding- access to GPS, OnStar, LowJack etc. data because car rental companies and insurance companies were using "fines" for speeding as a profit center.

The new tweeting car is just another desperate attempt by Big Three management goofs to keep their crappy iron salable. It shows a total lack of understanding where the computer/phone/web market is going in the next few years. What would be useful is a decent cell phone dock to attach the car audio to the phone/ipod/tablet/Blackberry/totally unimaginable new super widget that everybody has.

Its all moot anyway, Tata has plans to come to the US in a year or so and eat Ford's lunch.

The Phantom:
Your comment on your car ratting to the cops- do you mean this can be done remotely, or do they have to physically be at or in contact with the vehicle?
Big Brother indeed!

have you seen ford's tv marketing on their new, cosmo, metrosexual vehicles? essential items like cupholders get full promotion; some pathetic dude proclaims that he likes the gas cap because he doesn't get the smell of gas on his pweshush widdow fingaws; no concern about tainting the f150 brand, apparently

Years ago, I rode my motorcycle over to Minnesota from Montana. In North Dakota, I encountered some evidently experimental "talking" pop machines. I remember jumping about a foot when the first such machine spoke to me. I take it the technology never caught on.

Ford seems to be jumping into the techy environment which is a short-term game. Even back in "the day" eight track tape players came and went pretty quickly. At the time, however, it seemed like a must-have option and it was. And, not from personal experience, but friends indicate that their voice recognition gizmo's work.

P.S. Checked out a Lincoln MKS while dropping the Mark LT off for an oil change. What an attractive vehicle. The interior is so overdone, it's downright gaudy - and I LIKE IT!! Take a look when you get a minute.

The Car should come with a complimentary tow truck, oh well you can tweet for a tow truck on a daily basis.

snagglepus, the police can download any OBD-II computer by plugging in to it. In a sufficiently interesting accident, they will do that and use it against you in court. Oh. Yeah. Baby.

The police can locate (and monitor speed, direction, etc) any OnStar or similarly equipped car AND turn on the microphones remotely, without the driver knowing. Plus maybe shut off the car and lock/unlock the doors, it depends on the options. All remotely. That's part of what OnStar is supposed to do, its just that it can do it for the police as well as for you.

LoJack likewise allows police to locate the car and disable it, because that's what its for. But it can be used against -you- instead of to catch a car thief, should cops decide they want to do the paperwork.

Also of note, if you -really- p1ss them off they can subpoena the records for your PHONE and tell where you were and when by matching cell tower logs. Its been noised about that the Yanks can even turn on your phone and listen to it when its turned off.

There are other GPS enabled recorders that let you spy on your wife/husband/kids/whomever remotely as well, but they aren't standard equipment. Except on over-the-road trucks, those guys have Big Brother looking over their shoulder every minute.

Then there's all those traffic cameras...

None of this is conspiracy theory or Hollywood movie stuff. Do a google, it'll curl your frickin' hair.

So, this winter I'm buying an early 1960's Cadillac, Olds or other enormous seagoing vessel. Its hard to hack information out of a car with no computers. Or shut it off remotely, or listen in to the song I'm singing along to off key, etc. Twitter schmitter, give me a Holley 4 barrel and ignition with points. No computer going into my yacht unless I'm the one that programmed and encrypted it. Megasquirt or carbs.

Pretty soon we may have to put a Faraday cage inside the car to keep roadside transmitters from polling the non-powered RFID tags in our phones, driver's licenses, credit cards, laptop, toll road responders, blah blah blah.

Take the battery out of your phone and make the bastards WORK for that traffic ticket, that's what I say.

Meanwhile Ford want to make the car -more- vulnerable. Its GENIUS I tells ya!

Hey Kate ... you just bought a used F150 ... right?
Looks like about the age of the one I just blew up....

Well ... I just bought a NEW one ... the electronics package is outstanding ... no internet ability ... but IF it did ... I'd use it.

What's your problem ? ;)

BTW - Have your intake lifted and the gaskets checked.... do a compression test too ... those models have a long history of loosing coolant into the engine.

It is much cheaper to do the exploratory work than to see an engine suck in a couple quarts of water and glycol.

Cheers!

Hehe, this comment thread is funny. All those consarned kids, out there textin' an' tweetin! Metrasexsuals the lot of them, even if I don't understand what that really means!

Guess what? My 2009 Escape has 200 hp, can pull my trailer with ease, has heated seats and has a Microsoft SYNC system that can make my phone hands-free, control my Ipod hands-free and read my text messages to me.

And it's awesome.

does the gas get on your fingers?

YG, I'll wait until they make sex hands free.

Phantom @2:36 comment made me think you may be an EV convert because of your mention of India's Tata motors.

Your forecast at how it will affect GM is likely correct.

@ 6:05 you say how you plan to buy a '60s GM highway boat, [I drove a big white a '72 Buick 440 Electra for a couple of years.].

I sure miss being able to monkey wrench.

How are you going to pay for the gas? It's going up again here on the coast.

Best of both worlds? With something like a Nissan Leaf EV, the saved gas money could pay for your Caddy. You only wanted to drive it on Sundays anyway..

The Coda EV and the Tesla 4 door are just two of a flood of new EVs coming out soon.

GM's lost the advantage with the Volt, launching it late into a sea of competition.

Check ElectricNotGas.blogspot.com

So they figure by putting Twitter in...it will get rid of the "found on road dead" or "fix or repair daily" tag? The only thing more useless then a NA built car is a politician.

TG, not a big fan of electric cars. Or Tata for that matter. I said they are going to eat Ford's lunch, I did not say I'd buy one of their putt-putt cars. Whole awful lot of other people are going to though, upon this we certainly agree.

Hybrid diesel/electric technology is awesome for things like earth movers and railroad locomotives, where eliminating spinning drive shafts is a major plus.

Not great for cars though. Question of energy density in battery vs. liquid fuel, electric grid is too rickety to take the strain of 10 million cars charging up from 6pm to 11pm, line losses, pollution from gas/coal/nuclear fired generating stations is greater than equivalent gasoline engines in cars, and etc.

See my comment above re: wind generators melting hydro lines. They are going to.

There is zero superior utility in an electric vehicle once you admit that they do -not- produce less pollution. They actually produce more, just not right where the vehicle is. Its a scam.

GM's Volt is going -no place-, and everybody knows it. Every penny of taxpayer money spent on it is utterly wasted, in fact I'd go so far as to say stolen by the Obama administration to feed the DemocRat Party propaganda machine.

The Volt is the modern Democrat answer to Hitler's People's Car, the original Volkswagen. Like the Volkswagen its a propaganda exercise. Unlike the Volkswagen it does not solve an actual problem, and is doomed to a short life and a swift death. In 40 years whatever Volts are left may gain some value as a collectible like the Amphicar, another automotive exercise in solving a problem nobody needed solved. There will not be 40 million Volts running around the Earth like there are VW Bugs.

If/when gas become more expensive I'm going to do what everyone else is going to do: pay the money and complain. If gas becomes absurdly expensive, I'll do what everybody else is going to do: buy a moped and park the land yacht. Canada has more oil than Arabia, I don't think we're in too bad shape here.

Between whining and moped, maybe an engine swap from the 500ci Caddy to a four banger Volkswagen TDI diesel and a six speed automatic. Serious mileage potential in the little Volkswagen engine, particularly with propane injection and proper intercooler. Maybe a little water injection too, just for giggles.

In the mean time, cruising comfort and smokey burnouts at the car show are my goals.

a compendium of the vehicles I have owned:

72 Chevelle L6 with 2 spd tranny of all things
76 Ford Courier a.k.a. Mazda pickup
81 Vandura 302 with an early fuel injection thing
8? Chrysler TC3 hatchback. worst car I ever owned.
84 Cavalier
93 Taurus

the rule was when we got a new vehicle, the Mrs. would be the owner, I would get the better of her previous car or whatever I was driving.

I tended to keep cars way past their prime, the Taurus for example went off the road in 2006 when it was due for the rip-off emissions test; in all cases except the GMC van I drove them till they totally conked out.

now I'm retired, the vehicle in the driveway belongs to a tenant, and I ride a mountain bike worth more than the majority of each on the previous list some time when I was still driving them.

I won't admit to being a luditte/reactionary....but I really do resent anti-lock brakes......
I also resent weather too cold or wet, for riding my 1100 Virago.

Ford. The people who brought you the Edsel.