Fixing Cars

Now this is a clever iPhone app - Chrome - made for car enthusiasts who like to price classic cars and go to car shows. You can log data on your own car trips, Route 66 for example. Its probably one of the nicest UI’s I’ve seen in car iPhone apps and makes me wonder how long they were developing it.

This app designed by American National allows you to view photos of classic vehicles, and enter in the year make model and it will deliver data on the car. Pricing information on classic cars, GPS for your car road trips, and access to car shows all across the country. This is quite the killer app for car guys and gals.

The car show feature is extremely interesting, but I am wondering how they would find them all. I would like to have seen them include video capability in the app for people attending the car shows, but maybe they have plans for that feature down the road.

I saw a post about the new videopress plugin from WordPress on yoast.com and this comment stood out. The videopress plugin allows WordPress blogs to upload and embed videos into your blog, but it currently doesn’t provide ad support or iPhone capability, hmmm I’m starting to think maybe there is a use case outside of our domain for a player like that.

Eric R. Olsen wrote:
Can you run ads against the video?

I find that to be an interesting request, and one that makes me wonder if more like it exists. It would be interesting to know if bloggers wanted a player like the one I built, and whether it would help produce more income from their blog. Here is a couple examples of the ads I can run in our player:

The first example is a player using an XML feed to pull in the contents of the advertisement. It shows the cool little image, which I like and is easy to change what ads appear.

The second example is a player that allows advertising to be sold through an adserver. So if you’ve ever used google adwords you can use this.

Both players are examples in which I would believe that bloggers could make a significant amount more income from the ads having total control over them. The second example works on a proxy bidding system similar to google adwords does so if you’re bidding on an ad and someone outbids then they take the spot.

It would take some work to make it a white label solution, and I have no idea about creating wordpress plugins so that is where this may not be feasible. Also the player and the email / share functionality as well as the embedding would need to point to the blogger’s site who uploaded the videos but its not impossible.

Another comment was regarding the iPhone and whether a blog supports the viewing of posted videos on the iPhone. This is another feature I can provide, as every video is converted into multiple formats, one being for the iPhone. I need to setup the iPhone browser detect and then redirect the visitor to the mp4 version of the video as opposed to the embedded flash player.

Trending Topics at the time of this post:

* · Bran Hambric
* · Melrose Place
* · Jay-Z
* · Goodnight

Twitscoop launches an iPhone app - a trending tracker for Twitter.

A tag cloud contains the trends, the bigger the font the bigger the trend.

Earlier today I wrote about Twitter Trends.

Lately, conversations across the Twittersphere marked with a hashtag include stories like #wheniwaslittle I

itzbradababy: #whenIwasLittle I thought I would sufficate to death if I stayed under the pool of balls in Circus Circus for more than 30 sec.

PoetryandPeace: #wheniwaslittle I loved watching re-runs of Charlie’s Angels and Starsky & Hutch with my mom.Farrah was my hero & I thought Hutch was cute!

therealnati: #wheniwaslittle i tried to make up my own language so that no one could understand me. haha failed.
 

Silly, maybe… But where else will people share this type of data about themselves? In an email, no. In a blog, no. Oh wait, in person!

I can’t see anything, even Facebook catching up on this even with FriendFeed.

About a year ago, early Twitter investor Fred Wilson wrote about his calling out for Event Firehoses On Twitter.

This seems like the type of content that search engines were developed to manage and index. Perhaps the next wave in search engines is to produce an algorithm to manage trending topics.

Google stored your queries, you couldn’t see what other people were searching. What would have happened if Google published live search feeds, if we could actually see trending topics in Google? Perhaps Google will be feeling like Microsoft did when they underestimated search.

Sure there’s Google Trends, and it feels like more of a novelty than anything that produces real accurate and useful data.

Twitter on the other hand has always had that feeling of transparency, just go to the Twitter search page and see the trending topics right there.

Not only do the show the topics, but click on one and you see who is behind the topics right now. You don’t weed through old content, adsense sites, and news aggregators you just get right to the person or persons interested or sharing insight on a particular topic.

Every night you can bet you’ll see a trending topic of Goodnight. And that link will work tomorrow, but you can be rest assured that the same top 10 people you see right now won’t be competing for #goodnight this time tomorrow. They won’t have a website with 100’s and 1000’s of pages based on the word goodnight.

They aren’t trying to sell you pillows, or an alarm clock, or a prescription for Ambien. They are just there, sharing a thought, speaking in realtime and learning how to collectively build the next generation search.

2010 Taurus SHO with 365 Horsepower

Learn more about Ford SYNC

Check out additional exterior shots of the new Ford Taurus SHO right here.

Its great to see that Ford is making some great decisions in bringing back the 2010 Taurus SHO - Pro-Touring for the family. Mulally, Ford’s CEO recently visited Seattle to talk about why they decided to bring back this hugely successful model. It was quite an interesting interview on labor day covering the success of Ford amidst all the flack the industry is getting.

I first learned how to drive a manual transmission in a Taurus SHO, back in the early ’90’s. The car had leather interior, a fully loaded luxury car built with a substantial amount of power. Now with the 2010 coming out with 365 horsepower, its going to be another big win for Ford.

They’ve already got the enthusiasts heading over to the track to see what the SHO will do in stock form.  Autoblog recently posted a video of the new SHO pulling off a 13 second pass in the 1/4 mile.

The Taurus was a great all-around car, and it makes sense that Ford will try and recapture that success with what looks like a really slick design for 2010. I have to admit that I’ve not looked twice at any of the recent vehicles to come from the Big 3 but when I saw this I was really impressed.

The car even has a decent interior design, another typical disappointment I’ve seen from the domestic car companies. Lately they’ve been doing too much of the oval, round and goofy looking center console area.

I’m much more fond of the squared off look, and vertical lines from the dash down to the floor, as opposed the the 30 degree slopes that come off the dash with ugly big dials for the controls.

I’m a big fan of the lines that Volvo has on their interior:

The Taurus Interior

Overall I’m pleased to see that the Taurus is back, that the company listened to the enthusiast market, and is delivering a quality design.  The 365 horsepower is going to be a thrill to drive, and I’m sure once some of the aftermarket companies come out with a few bolt ons the car will run 12’s with mid 400 horsepower.

Check out some more great pics of the new 2010 Ford Taurus SHO photos

The founder of Papa John’s Pizza, John Schnatter concluded his search for his beloved 1971 Z28 Camaro and handed over $250,000 to the current owner in exchange for what helped start the Papa John’s business. You can read more about this adventure at Papa John’s Road Trip, a site created specifically for the mission to find John’s Camaro.

John’s decision to sell the car in 1983 was necessary to help his fathers tavern stay in business and it also allowed him to start Papa John’s.

It’s a story I can certainly relate to when I let go of my mint 1991 GMC Syclone with 14,000 original miles last year to continue building my business.

I held onto it as long as I could, until I ultimately had to sacrifice it knowing that I would probably never own one so pristine ever again.  It still had the new car smell, and as I watched it get loaded onto the transport truck it really hit me.

I didn’t feel remorse as I watched it disappear, it was like being in shock and denial and deep resentment that I knew from that point on I would do anything I had to.  Its strange how much a physical object, like a car can carry so much meaning, it just does.  I don’t think you have to be a car enthusiast at birth to feel this connection either, I think everyone feels it right around age 16 when you get a drivers license and its at that point where you are now in control and will determine your own direction.

I actually thought about this the other day when I was thinking back about the cars my friends in high school had and how it represented their identity.  I listed the ones that I could clearly remember, and was really surprised I had retained so many intricate details about the cars.  Its as though the cars really had a personality of their own, and the owners were simply providing the ability for that personality to show.

Its almost like that saying where you think a dog resembles the looks of its owner, the same to some extent applies to cars.

I applaud Mr. Schnatter for seeking out his Camaro and recognizing that it had been key to the success of his business.  I wish I could hear more stories of what people had to go through during the phase of starting a business, because I think theres a very powerful state of mind or “shift” that occurs when you are on the path of uncertainty, and being fully aware that you lack all the knowledge needed, but pushing forward as those things begin to find their way in.

I would imagine that Mr. Schnatter felt that strange feeling that I felt last year as Syclone #1840 rolled off on its way to Colorado.  It traveled all the way from CA on an enclosed carrier to my home in MI where I barely put 1000 miles on it since 2004, then again on an enclosed carrier from MI to WA in 2006.  When it left for colorado it was on an open carrier probably stacked with Honda Accords and Ford Tauruses.

I doubt I’ll see that truck again, nor do I think I’ll look for it.  But when I sold it I hadn’t got the original keys that came with it in 1991 from the original dealership out of the safety deposit box in time to send them along.  I told the guy I’d send them as soon as I got them out.  They’ve been sitting above my TV on a shelf for weeks now, and everytime I see em I say I gotta send those to the guy, he’d be thrilled to get them because they are the first keys to the truck.  Maybe I’ll send them tomorrow, or perhaps I’ll just forget again.

Syclone keys

There are tons of things I can do today, people I can connect with, and information I can take in.  What will all of these things do for me right now?  Its more information, no doubt about it, but is it the right information that I need right now?

It seems like every moment of every day is a revelation, another step in the right direction towards my goal, and my goals are high so its a lot of steps.

I do have a busy week, and its one I managed to setup because I’ve gone out and met people who I think might help me.  I value these relationships very highly and I’m constantly leveraging them for advice and guidance.  I have too many things to do, so the best thing I can do is break those things off into segments and let others handle them.  What I mean is, I try and do the very minimum that I can, to get someone the data they need, to then provide me what I need.

What I need right now is proof.  It doesn’t have to be in the form of $500,000 quarterly revenues, although that would make proving it much easier.  It simply means that I have a business, I think this business is going to do this, and here is how its gonna happen.  But I don’t know anything about cars.  That’s fine let me explain.

So this is where proof comes in.  Its what I’m working on.  It wasn’t my idea, but as soon as they told me I needed to do it, I said your right - I do.  So here’s what I do.

You want proof, you want to see that what I’m saying is whats happening, then let me allow these people to tell you in their words who are industry leaders, and key people in this gameplan I have.  I’ll interview them, they’ll provide the data to backup the assumptions I’ve made.

So maybe when you get it, you’ll tell someone, who’ll tell someone else, who’ll tweet it, who’ll want to share with the class, who’ll want to um… I don’t know… become part of the story.

Thats what its all about, in the end, the story.  If you have one chance to tell it so others will tell it for you, nail it and give em goosebumps.  Explain to them, you know that feeling you get when the plane takes off, that force pushing you back in the seat, thats what its about.