LA Auto Show

Right, just back from the LA motor show, camera has got about 700 pics on it, sadly I have not looked at them yet.
A few big things from this year:

• Focus on Sub Compact cars.
- Ford Fiesta
- Mazda 2
- Chevy Cruze
- Chevy Volt

Ford have been slapping a ton of social media networking behind the new Fiesta, all sorts of twitter, blogs and peer to peer stuff. The fiesta comes in a ton of fruity colours which are supposed to be youth centric.
The Mazda 2  is also another smaller little number, little more agressivly styled than the partially bubbly Fiesta. 2010 looks like it will be the year for these econo, high mpg sub $15k motors. The Chevy Cruze also falls in this cat, but let's not talk about that for good reasons.

• Development of crossover category.
- Honda Cross Tour
- Acura  ZDX
- Bmw X6

On the crossover front there seems to be quite a development of vehicles with a unque style concerning the rear 3rd of the car, sportier looking CUV Crossover Utility Vehicle,  a large hatchback on a car with a higher back end, a little bit of a "fastback" and "touring style" with a  nose sloping bodyline. The hatch backs also seem to be developing a lot of glass which is spilling into the rear vertical panel of the trunk.

• Electric cars hit mainstream.
- Chevy Volt
- Audi Etron (nr concept.)
- Mitsubishi IMiEV

Good webpage to cover them here:
http://www.leftlanenews.com/2009-los-angeles-auto-show.html

Google Reader - Sharing Following.

LinkedIn - great for professionally networking.
Facebook - Great for socially networking, light information.
Twitter - Still trying to find other uses than following Celebrities.
Google reader - Great for gathering related information on a daily basis.

I have been using Google Reader for a while now as a mass information source, kinda like a big pile of your favourite magazines - it's  a one stop way to follow a lot of diffeent blogs and streams of content rich information. One of the main features of Google Reader is it can be very visual, it downloads images in the news streams with text where needed (Facebook and Twitter do not do this, and following streams on Flicker, is pretty much images only). Google Reader is also very flexible, it will Report on most websites and integrates with many seamlessly. Since I read a lot of design, fashion, architecture blogs which are image rich, Google reader works out great.

Then about a month ago, I found the "sharing feature"
This allows you to share your favourite articles with other Google Reader users. WICKED!. Also with this it allows you to Follow other users, kinda twitter style. So it starts to build a community, that way I can see what other subjects / articles my other Design friends note that are of interest. Having many eyes in the design world is great and I guess the Share and Follow aspects are building comunity just like Twitter does.

SO If this sounds appealing to you, I suggest you look it up here

Anyone can check out my stream of shared articles here: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/jbucky1

Graeme Obree dumps hour record plans

Bummer

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/graeme-obree-dumps-hour-record-plans-23985