Follow the Bullrun on Twitter and RSS

The 2009 Bullrun rally runs from New York City to Austin Texas. The participants left NYC this morning early and arrive in Austin next Friday.

Follow their progress – and arrests – here:

• http://twitter.com/BullrunRally
  
• http://www.bullrun.com/rss.xml

USA Today starts Open Road online community

USA Today has started a new online community named Open Road: http://openroad.usatoday.com

News, online forums, discussion. Registration required.

Links <right click> and <open in new tab>

• RSS feed: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/openroad/rss
  
• Twitter feed: unfortunately none available

Automotive sites on Twitter

Twitter is a relatively new social networking service on the internet that allows users to get connected in near real time. Users type in messages known as Tweets and those are posted to their “profile”. Profiles can be public or private: public being ones that anybody can follow and private being ones that the owner has to grant permission to view. The Tweets can then be followed by a variety of means including a web page or even a cell phone SMS  service. You’ll note that some private individuals use their cell phone to create sometimes minute-by-minute entries detailing their lives.  

If you are browsing a site and see a “bird tweeting” icon similar to the right, that site or author also has a Twitter profile. Click the button to go to their site and signup to follow them.

Corporations are starting to use Twitter as a marketing tool. Tweets are created to announce news items, events, articles of interest, and more – very similar to blogging except that Tweets are purposefully far shorter (limited in length) and are intended to alert readers to a site for reading a full article instead of presenting the full article in the Tweet.

Here are a few of the automotive corporations and websites that are using Twitter:

• Chrysler: http://twitter.com/Chrysler 


• Ford: http://twitter.com/ford


• Ford Racing: http://twitter.com/FordRacing 


• Mitsubishi: http://twitter.com/MitsubishiNA


• Fisker Auto: http://twitter.com/fiskerauto

Since this is a new technology, Twitter names are likely to change going forward. For example, a private individual signed up for the profile “GM” and clearly that won’t last.

Nobody knows exactly where the Twitter phenomena is going. And you may or may not like this particular method of following the news. But if you want to stay fully connected with the corporations or individuals who are Tweeting, you need to sign up for a Twitter account (free) and get involved.

About Twitter:

• Twitter website: http://www.twitter.com/ 


• Wikipedia entry on Twitter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

The DrivingEnthusiast network first joined Twitter in March 2009. Every blog posting made on our sites also goes to Twitter for your convenience. 

• You can follow us here: http://twitter.com/DrivEnthusiast (we’ve had to shorten our name on Twitter since there is a limit on the length of the name).


• As we find new Twitter sites of interest, we’ll add them to our  index here: http://www.drivingenthusiast.net/sec-blog/categories/automotiveTwitterSites/ (blog with RSS feed)

Are you aware of additional automotive Twitter sites?  Send them to us via comments and we’ll consider adding them to our index.

Sensitivity Training – with Brandon and The Frog

This site is relatively new – and very creative. An original video series sponsored by Valvoline.

Under the Hood with Brandon and The Frog (suggest <right click> and <open in new tab>):

• Site: http://www.brandonandthefrog.com/ 
  
• RSS feed: http://www.brandonandthefrog.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Garage419: web video magazine with RSS feeds

Here’s a great site that is new to me. New videos come out every Tuesday and Thursdays. The videos are a combination of news, comparison tests, and build-ups. There are topics for everyone, ranging from muscle to Japanese cars.

• Site: http://www.garage419.com 
  
• RSS Feed: http://feeds.garage419.com/garage419/rss