Mary S. Butler

At last month’s J.D. Power 2009 Automotive Internet Roundtable I moderated a well-received panel on social networking and how it is being used by automotive industry professionals. I was fortunate enough to line up a panel of industry thought leaders and social practitioners in the digital automotive space. They were:

• Christopher Barger, Director of Social Media, General Motors (@cbarger and @GMblogs)
• Jared Hamilton, CEO and Founder, Drivingsales.com (@drivingsales)
• Tom Chisholm, Midwest Sales Director, Facebook
• Eric Miltsch, IT-Web Director, Auction Direct USA (@AuctionDirect)
• Ralph Paglia, Director of Digital Marketing, ADP Dealers (@ralphpaglia)

Based on the dozens of questions we received from the audience (responses were posted from the @SocialDealers Twitter profile), it’s evident that this topic is of high interest to dealers, automakers and third-party sites. I’m hoping a followup panel that concentrates on the importance of content strategy when it comes to Social and SEO will be assembled for the 2010 Automotive Internet Roundtable.

Related links:

• Video of the Social Networking panel at the 2009 Automotive Roundtable; J.D. Power, Oct. 15, 2009
• Social Networking Panel J.D. Power Automotive Internet Roundtable; ADM Community, Oct. 18, 2009

I have been spending a lot of time this year looking at social networking sites and the opportunities that exist for both car shoppers and automakers. I recently came across a press release for a new site that is touted in the headline as “the first automotive social network.” (Although the folks at CarDomain would rightly claim that is not the case.) Specious claim aside, I went to check out the new site. Unfortunately, the only thing on the CarFolks.com homepage, at least at the time of this posting, is a Flash intro and links to a contact form and to the November 8 launch announcement. Definitely not what I expected after the press release buildup.

Michael Arrington reports on TechCrunch that “Google will announce a new set of APIs on November 5 that will allow developers to leverage Google’s social graph data.” I’ll let Wikipedia explain the social graph geek concept. I am more worried about another daily timesuck.

Only a few months after creating my profile on Facebook, it is already fifth on the list of sites I visit daily, after my client’s site, Gmail, my Flickr and my company’s wiki. OK, maybe it edges out my company’s wiki.

If Google succeeds at adding “a social layer on top of the entire suite of Google services,” creating an engaging environment and, as one TechCrunch commenter suggests, using judicious data mining to measure the depth and exclusivity of your connections, they could contribute additional texture and shading to the friend construct. It may be possible to have these connections be more implicit than explicit. Of course, there are a number of privacy concerns that come to mind, but I suspect the Google team will address these as part of their November 5 announcement.

09/28/07 update: How did Microsoft respond to this news? Yesterday Fortune reported that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was spotted Tuesday in Seattle, headed for meetings with executives at Microsoft. Unfortunately, I have no insider insight to add to that. Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms & Services Division of Microsoft, was in AA|RF’s New York offices this week and during Q&A with the staff was asked about published rumors that Microsoft was considering buying a stake in Facebook. Johnson said he doesn’t comment on those types of speculations in the press.