UPDATE: I just got a call from Bob Collins, owner of T&A Alignment, and he tells me that replacing the “2001-2003 BMW 530i Radiator Coolant Overflow Tank (E39 Chassis Type)” fixed it — I am ready to roll!!! Woo-hoo!

I really don’t drive enough in the desert or everyday to know not to stress test the coolant system of my 2001 530i BMW “e39″ sedan, but now I know what not to do: Idle in noonday, historically high, 105F heat, AC blasting, while taking a business call on my cell because I was afraid to drive for fear that the West Nebraska cell phone service was going to be too spotty.

Well, the result was pretty catastrophic, or so I have been fretting for the last couple days. The above picture is taken in the first bay at T&A Alignment, owner Bob Collins.

Here’s the deal that I wrote down to post onto the BMW enthusiast forum, Bimmerfest, Overheat to Red and then Fail During Idle and Crack in Radiator Coolant Overflow Tank:

Of course I am already freaked out that this is a cracked cylinder head but let me just post what happened.  I am driving through Nebraska and got a call so instead of staying in the restaurant and taking the call, I jumped into the car and idled and had the AC running for 20 minutes in the noonday heat.  I noticed the AC was off and just the blower/fan and then noticed the temp was not in the middle, like always, but in the red, with the light on. All the way in the red. Instead of turning the car off, I started driving to get some air in it and it got worse, so I stopped the car, opened the hood, and there was coolant all over the inside of the hood/bonnet. The temp gauge went all the way to hot and turned off, actually. And stayed all the way right.  I had a rural mechanic come over and look at it and it had cooled but there was no coolant in the reservoir.  I drove 1/2 mile to the garage and their first diagnosis is a crack in the Radiator Coolant Overflow Tank, which I will replace, so they can do the test to see if it is, in fact, just that crack or if the pressure backup from a cracked cylinder head.  What is your intuition.  I know that I should not have been idling in 100F heat in the car with the AC on — and I also know that I should have turned the car OFF when I saw the overheat and left it there for at least 1/2 hour.  But I didn’t.  But I will do from now on.  What does your intuition say? Replace the Radiator Coolant Overflow Tank or the whole engine?

They’re going to check a couple things to make sure there’s structural damage to the engine — a real possibility — or if replacing the cracked Radiator Coolant Overflow Tank with the one that I ordered and had drop-shipped from 1A Auto (I had a feeling right away that Bob wouldn’t be able to find one so I made sure there was a plan B) fixes everything or will I need to take advantage of my 200 mile tow with AAA Premiere and have her towed to Tom Dinsdale BMW in Grand Island, Nebraska, for some more serious work.

Wish me luck!

And yes, indeed, I am still in Ogallala, Nebraska, where everyone’s really nice and friendly and the beds in the Comfort Inn are the comfiest because they all have pillowtops. I am sleeping like a very worried and neurotic baby.

Here’s a spy photo of a late-design, pre-production version of the next BMW M5 via Autoblog:

What do you think?  Here’s a gallery of more photos for you, too.

[Guest post by Stevie Wilson of the LA Story blog] If you aren’t familiar with me, this is Stevie Wilson and I post very intermittant posts here and on Marketing Conversation.com .

Chris Abraham has been on my blog many times–both in podcast and in reference (where have you been?). If you read this blog you know that Chris Abraham, attends– and speaks at– many major social media events and conferences. He’s an interesting person to know because he’s a multi-dimensional person with an inquisitive mind and lots of interests. If you want to know about the posts on my blog, head over there and do a search on my blog or head over to www.chrisabraham.com or marketingconversation.com and search for my posts there. This might be a bit redundant for this blog but hang with me people, it gets better!

Chris Abraham (looking pretty dapper here and he was dressed pretty much like this the night we had dinner)

Before we get into the podcast, you need a bit of back story. I interviewed Chris Abraham at least 3 years ago– about a statement he made about his life. (Like I said, it’s a podcast, hunt it down in my blog or his). I was able to connect to him and he was willing to talk to me and so began a series of irregular podcasts and contributions to blogs that sort of created a friendship of sorts. Given the range of topics, we have no problems laughing at each other’s jokes or finding out that we both like to do target practice. Yet during all this time, I had never met Chris. The only way I had seen him was his photos or if he was in a video–really– in at least 3 years.

So as Chris Abraham made this sojourn across the country, making pit-stops in all kinds of places (and being stuck in ice storms), we eventually put together a “meet-up” and when all was worked out, we met at the Beechwood Restaurant in Venice. Not the easiest place to find for an Angeleno who doesn’t know Venice but so much easier for someone from out of the area — he beat me there because I got lost and circled the area twice! Patient man that he is, he recognized me as I can flying in the restaurant door and we headed out to the patio for dinner — and to get me a cocktail.

We ordered up some appetizers– and this man has a taste for the exotic and I went with it. Great idea too! Fried edamame, fried spicy chickpeas (YUM!) and some sashimi type fish.

This podcast was done LIVE in a busy restaurant. I have tried to amplify and clean up the sound but parts might be a bit faint so turn up the volume or plug in a headset and turn up the volume. It is very very funny. We had a diverse range of topics to talk about.

We did order dinner– and you will hear it in the podcast along with 2 people who were sitting next to us. The person who mentions Steve Martin’s book is the wife and the man talking about dying his hair red is the husband.. and they were interesting people–VERY interesting people.

Here’s my dinner– and me! Photo by Chris Abraham.

(sparkly eyes thanks to the Jack and Jill cocktail and a lot of laughte. Recipe at the end. )

I didn’t take a photo of Chris because he was back-lit and he would have either been dark with a halo (hmmm Chris does that mean you are an angel in disguise?) or I would have/should have used my flash and then worked it a bit in photoshop! Why didn’t I ? I thought it would stop the flow of conversation and the people on the other side were listening to our conversation too. I guess we were pretty interesting or we were having a better time than them.

Beechwood Jack and Jill Cocktail

• Lairds Applejack
• Pomegranate Syrup
• Fresh Lemon Juice
• Orange Bitters

Served on the rocks, topped with Prosecco.
Yummy drink and the Prosecco adds just the right amount of fizz.

Thankyou to Chris Abraham for being willing to podcast in that environment. I think he may not remember all that was said. I certainly didn’t. Also the couple next to us were very chatty and very funny. Thanks to Chris for dinner too.. he was willing to fight me for the bill. So I deferred to his better judgement as he is over 6 feet tall and I am about 5’3″. We both have the similar taste in cars– fast, German and BMW are 3 key words. What they will be next year.. could be entirely different.

Chris Abraham has left LA now and headed north. So by the time he sees this I am not sure where he will be. However maybe, if we are very lucky, he will head back down into LA and I can corral him into another podcast about social media topics or affects or whatever topic he chooses. “The princessification of girls” is on facebook and his blog.

Thanks again Chris. It was really fun. Hope we can have coffee or show you something other than Venice as part of a tour of LA. I think you would like to see more of So. California.

Stevie Wilson, LA-Story.com

Just after I wrote BMW is a Stinking Lying Liar! I got a tweet from @holgr saying “The same is happening at Mercedes as well.” Well, here’s what I wrote:

My next article is to out Mercedes for doing the same thing, which used to hide its displacement in its number. So, the S500 or 500S had a 5-liter engine and a E320 had a 3.2 Liter engine and a 300D had a 3-liter Diesel engine, this the D — and the 560SEL had a 5.6 Liter engine — I am scandalized!

Well, I did a little research and what Holger said is true.  Now, please forgive me if I got this wrong.  Let’s compare, using my favorite Mercedes-Benz automobile, the CL-Class coupé.

Starting with the first-generation 1992-2000 Mercedes-Benz CL-Class “W140,” there was the CL500 with a 5.0L 315 hp V8 and the CL600 with the 6.0L 389 hp V12 — OK, that works… the 1992-2000 CL500 did, in fact, have a 5.0L engine and the CL600 had a 6.0L engine.  That works.

The second-generation CL-Class had the “W215″ chassis (my Mercedes 300D had a 123 chassis, for example).

Between 2000-2006, there were a number of CLs.  The V8-powered CL500 (5.0L), the supercharged V8-powered CL55 (5.5L) AMG, the V12-powered CL600 (5.8L — oops), a 2001 limited-edition V12-powered CL63 AMG (6.3L), and the rare bi-turbo V12-powered CL65 AMG (6.0L — whoops!).

Wow, based on the W215 examples here, there was a little moniker authenticity slippage back in 2000-2006 with the CL600 and the CL65.

OK, now let’s check on our current CL-Class chassis model, the W216.  How’s the authenticity between the displacement of the engines versus the number… is this indicative of the terrible, terrible, catastrophic end of civilization as we know it?

Wow, this is really weird… the W216 CL500 and the CL550 have 5.5L V8 engine, the CL600 has a 5.5L V12, the CL63 AMG has a 6.2L V8, and, crazy enough, the CL65 AMG is a 6.0L V-12 BiTurbo!

Good Lord, both BMW and Mercedes-Benz has started lying to us, all for the sake of appearances.  Or, as the guy from the BMW dealer told me, “for tradition?”

What else is happened?  What else is falling into the opening and broadening cracks down to Hell, with fingers of fire and sparking flakes of brimstone.  When the German pragmatist in all the German automakers completely goes to hell, what is there left to believe in?

I spent the day at the Roswell, Georgia, BMW dealer with my friend S as he shopped for 7-Series BMWs and I must lodge a complaint as the owner of a 2001 BMW 530i “e39″ with a 3 Liter inline six motor.

The complaint is based on the two numbers after the series number of each car. For example, in the past, a 750i had a 5 Liter engine, a 328i had a 2.8 Liter engine, and the 318i had a 1.8 Liter engine. The engine displacement has always been kept in the two numbers after the 3, 5, or 7 Series number.

Now, as we test drove a 2011 BMW 740Li and a 750Li I discovered that the 2011 528i has my car’s engine, a 3-Liter inline-6, and is just sporting the 28 “out of tradition.” What? What’s more, the 740Li sports a twin-turbo 3 Liter 6, not a 4-Liter, and the 750Li sports a 4-Liter 8 and not a 5-Liter!  Even more, the 2011 BMW 335i is a 3-Liter inline-six with a twin-turbo and not a 3.5 Liter engined car.

The first thing the dealer did when we shot off in the 740LI was, “doesn’t feel like a six, does it?”  The tail doesn’t at all designate that the traditionally and historically naturally-aspirated award-winning BMW engines are now often turbo and twin-turbo-assisted, though this is not represented in the new alpha-numeric nomenclature.  Since “i” means fuel-injected and “x” means all-wheel-drive and “L” means long-wheelbase, shouldn’t “t” mean turbo or “b” mean biturbo?

Am I silly or are you as appalled as I am?

I rented a full-sized car from the Enterprise at the Hotel Nikko on Mason in San Francisco to do a day trip to Guy Kawasaki’s house for a fundraiser. All they had was a big lacquer black, leather-swaddled, Chevrolet Tahoe LT.

They gave it to me for the same price and I was in heaven. OK, she was nothing like my BMW, but as I reported before, whenever I get my hands on an American truck, my heart leaps! The truck was a flex-fuel truck with an V8. There was plenty of rock-solid stability all the way up to 90. While I am spoiled by my 5-series german sedan, with its precise steering and its on-rails handling, the sloppiness in the wheel was OK because this is a Very Big Truck. The Chevy Tahoe 12:28:07 feels a lot less urban cowboy or yuppie than it does proper ranch-owner or construction company owner. This is a blue collar vision of a good time and of arrival. This is also a vision of the world that would fit in well in a motorcade — it is gorgeous enough to replace that Towncar if you have to impress clients picking them up at the airport. It feels larger than it looks from afar. I think it’s a bit smaller than the Chevy Suburban and the Ford Expedition. But I could be wrong. I don’t know if I will trade my gorgeous, well-loved, 2001 e39 530i BMW in just now. But, if I need another vehicle, I will surely consider adding this gorgeous behemoth to the stable, let the greenies be damned!

The Citroën DS 20 was not only a very popular car but also a very elegant and advanced car.

Many modern conveniences such as air shocks, hydraulics, directional headlights, and many other refinements that are commonplace today but were very odd, quirky, eccentric, and bizarre back in the day. What an amazing example of this proto-luxury French auto.

David Gelles and I stumbled upon this 80s-era E28 BMW M5 parked on the street in San Francisco and both fell in love. San Fran is the home of quirky, awesome, and rare classic cars.

I have been reading every month that BMW is losing its heart and spirit, losing its spirit of driving, its passion for naturally-aspirated engines and tight handling for turbos and assisted steering — going for heaviness, luxury, softness, sloppiness, and technology over its driving and sport heritage.

The R and RS Audis have taken away the motorsport badge from BMW and Mercedes’ AMG badge does heavy, fast, and luxurious much better than Beemer ever will.

I stopped buying 5-series cars at the E39 body style, last made in 2003, and consider the latest 5s and 3s to be derivative and lacking the heritage and inspiration — quickness and handling — that had made BMW the epitome of the driver’s car with maybe the high point being the BMW Z3 M car — a car that was so powerful and mad that it was fiercely irresponsible — in a good way — and offered so many horses and torque for its size that the driving shaft would sometimes just commit hari-kari.

Oh well, it looks like I will be buying “classic” from now on. To me, the only car that hasn’t lost its heritage is the Porsche 911.

Audi, congrats to you for stealing, eating, and keeping BMW’s lunch with your fantastic RS4, R6, and supercar R8 of Iron Man fame.

Sorry, BMW, I only say this because I love you and I very well expected to keep on buying 5-Series for life — but probably not any more — I hear the electronically-assisted steering on the new fives is a Bavarian heresy!

While I do miss my 1997 Land Rover Discovery, RIP, I have nothing but pride and excitement for my 2001 E39 BMW 530i, bought used from BMW. She’s fast, tight, quick, handsome, timeless, reliable, and not getting long in the teeth even after 89k miles and almost a decade since she was born. I just bought another two years of registration in Virginia on her and feel an explosion of pride every time the valet drives up. In fact, I am so besotted that I find myself checking out other E39 5-Series BMWs — it’s a handsome sedan. My ode to my 5.

BMW‘s official unveiling ceremony isn’t until Monday, but a few authentic shots of the all-new “F10″ BMW 5 Series are floating around cyberspace. These three low resolution images only give us a frontal glimpse of the upcoming 5 Series sedan, apparently as it does a dress rehearsal for its big show at the beginning of the week.

Our first sans-camouflage observation says it looks much like the 5 Series GT, its close sibling (nobody was expecting any radical styling departure anyway). Thanks to its “sport sedan” role, the new 5 Series four-door sports a slightly more aggressive flair to its front facade and side styling.

In case you were wondering, the little black buttons just ahead of the front wheels are side view cameras, just like those found on the 7 Series. We’ll reserve further judgment until Monday, when they pull the rest of the tarp off. Thanks for the tip, Brandon!

I would love to sell my BMW and buy a Ford SUV if they made a new Bronco based on a short wheelbase Ford F-150. Man, that was one hell of a Ute. Come on Ford!

Posted via email from Chris Abraham

God bless Alpina for actually making an M7. I mean, there are loads of AMG S- and CL-Series that can push 200MPH, but no M7?  Well, here she is, the 2009 BMW Alpina B7 Bi-Turbo!

The 2009 BMW Alpina B7 Bi-Turbo will join the B6 GT3 race car on the stand in Geneva, and thanks to AutoZeitung, we’ve got a singular photo and some preliminary specs on the uber-sedan from Alpina.

The B7 Bi-Turbo is essentially the M7 BMW forgot to build, packing a twin-turbocharged, 4.4-liter V8 putting out 507 hp and 516 lb-ft of torque. Alpina claims the B7 can run to 60 in 4.7 seconds and on to an electronically-limited 173 mph. We’ll have more details from the Geneva Motor Show next week, but expect a host of upgrades to join the engine mods, including uprated brakes, suspension components and a reworked interior to compliment the B7′s new body kit.

Via AutoZeitung and Autoblog

The future of Social Network Services (SNS) can be discovered on High School and College campuses. I believe that topic-specific “vertical” SNS’s are very important, but I also think that the model needs to be University-like – a modularized SNS. There needs to be a campus “brand” (or University) within which the topic-specific “clubs,” “houses,” “fraternities,” “dorms,” and “interest groups” can interact – somewhere where crossovers, cross-fertilization, and aggregation are encouraged – no, needs – to happen. I hate SNS sites like boompa.com – a site devoted to your favorite cars – because I am not JUST a car guy.

I am a car guy for sure but I am also interested in rowing, in biking, in Thomas Pynchon, and in talk radio – Boompa might be successful in the short term, but in the long-term, the real power would come from creating a open, creative, resource-rich platform/campus/university/high school and maybe create a school of engineering, a liberal arts school, a law school, a dining hall, and so forth, but then allow the SNS to find itself.

To allow the SNS and its members to find their own voice, their own interests, and their own passions – which may well be very different from what is first assumed by the creator. Google gets this, though not yet within the construct of the SNS’s. What Google did do successfully was to buy USENET – the original newsgroups – and then build an superstructure on top of that – make it modern, sustainable, durable, and more readable.

Google returned USENET to relevance in a world that considered newsgroups and IRC to be dead or dying. Each and every one of communities on USENET is amazingly vertical, but they could all back up and back out to the larger USENET community – to the equivalent of the “welcome new students??? meetings and gatherings colleges offer to entering Freshmen.

Communities that are too vertical tend to shoe horn the “general topics??? conversations into hidden “off topic??? eddies. That is just the opposite of what should be done. The conversation should be general, cross-pollinating, and then move, after a conversation starts, into another room.

Start with an amazing platform, collect users, listen and watch them to see how they’re playing with the software application objects, widgets, and tools (are they playing with the toy or the box?), and then build for the users base, withholding judgment. Digg is a case study for this: start small, grow organically, and allow your members to find themselves.

The developers of Digg realized that after initial vertical growth based on the general members of Slashdot (techie, geeky, teens, boys), digg would suffer from the same sort of vulnerabilities that Slashdot suffered when Slashdot didn’t evolve and grow and broaden itself.

People love talking about Linux, but when happens when the Dow drops or the elections come? Where will the conversation happen? Where is the “kitchen??? at the party where every eventually goes to just talk about general interest stuff? Unless there are opportunities to express and share so-called “off-topic??? conversation right there, within the community in which members are already committed, with members to whom they’re already committed, then they are bound to go elsewhere.

Starting small and allowing the community to design itself is much different than starting big and losing one’s focus. Other mistakes happen when community builders make assumptions as to what participants, members, and lurkers want. Another mistake is putting a wall up around the community so that non-members cannot get a full feeling for the community from without.

The best SNS’s, virtual worlds, and online communities are honeypots. By honeypot, I am not suggesting, “a server that is configured to detect an intruder by mirroring a real production system. It appears as an ordinary server doing work, but all the data and transactions are phony. Located either in or outside the firewall, the honeypot is used to learn about an intruder’s techniques as well as determine vulnerabilities in the real system.” Although I am, sort of. The best SNS needs to be appealing, attractive, sweet, and compelling. Community-builders and SNS ASP developers need to be willing learn about member techniques, interests, processes, and needs, as well as determine “vulnerabilities” in the SNS platform that may repel, turn off, or limit the evolution and growth of the community.

To channel Chauncey Gardener for a second, one must do whatever one must to make sure that the earth in the garden is moist and well fed, one must seed well and completely, one must keep the garden in sun and water, one must encourage the garden to grow as it will for only in its growth will the garden be successful, and then, after rigorous growth, pruning and weeding must be done, only in order to allow the garden to be healthy, not to turn the garden into topiary. Okay, I am done.

Digg allows all of these things. Digg is perfectly useful and compelling even as an alien, but it is way more fun and interesting when you’re a citizen, that’s for sure. An SNS community needs to be as attractive as possible because exclusivity is no longer essential or even valuable. What is valuable is “useful,??? “interesting,??? and “authentic.??? They also have to have community buy-in and the best enjoy a certain fanatical devotion. Just like the best Universities and Colleges.

And Digg allowed its member to tell it when it was time to evolve past tech and geek news. Digg did not limit its scope or define itself too tightly with being “gear for geeks??? or “news for nerds.??? That would have ultimately been the death of Digg.

What the best Universities (such as Yale) understand is that it is not the student who is blessed and honored by being accepted by a top college (Yale College) but rather it is the college that should be blessed and honored (and should be grateful) that such a quality student is accepting its offers and actually attending – choosing – their particular school: Yale instead of Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Dartmouth, Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley, etc…

Harvard, too, is aware that although in the short-term Harvard makes the Harvard Man, over the long term, it is Harvard Men who made Harvard and continue to make Harvard. “Who have you graduated recently???? Unless the quality and character of its students and alumni remain top-drawer, Harvard is not guaranteed its position as “top three??? in USA Today alongside Princeton and Yale. No matter how grand its endowment.

So, Harvard and Yale spoil their students rotten! My friends who attended Harvard or Yale college swoon over those 4 years like I swoon over my first love.

Likewise, SNS’s, virtual worlds, and virtual communities need to realize that at any one point, their brand is only as good as the collective that is manifest in the users, the members, the lurkers, the stewards, and the alumni of the property.

This isn’t only true in SNS’s. The same thing can be said of the most successful message boards and online communities. The most important distinction, I think, is that all of these “rooms” and all of these “clubs” and all of these spaces where (and are) defined and created by the communities themselves. Sui generis. And this sort of ownership – “for us by us,??? as the slogan goes over as Howard Rheingold’s Brainstorms community – should never be underestimated.

The Well has Howard Rheingold as a member and alumnus, for example, and the credibility of all that he has made and done; over time, more and more virtual communities, virtual worlds, and SNS will be known for their members as well: who studies, who studied, and who wants to join.

“What’s in it for me??? (WIIFM) and the concept of pride of ownership are important – essential – ingredients of a sustainable, deep, thriving, and healthy community. The success of MySpace and of Facebook is that the verticals are not (were not) defined for them by their grand architects – they are self-creating, self-forming, and also self-destructing. They form, reform, mutate and disperse after they hit a limit of general conversation and then either break off and reform into an “interest group” or “club” or they self-check and work to “get back on topic.”

SNS’s and communities in general tend to be formed in one of two ways: like Paris or like London. Intelligence Design (architecture) or Emergent Design. The later never looks very beautiful or the way people – or the creators, investors, and architects – expect (or want) it to look, because investors and designers tend to not be able to control it – and when they do try to impost order, often in a heavy-handed way, they also tend to scare off all of their members, too.

This organic revolution has proven its success online time and time again. The Internet does not respond (well or at all) to command and control. The smartest Web 2.0 platforms allow the “masses of asses” (yes, the customer; yes, us) to define the platform and the experience – their own and collective environment and experience.

MySpace does this amazingly well and so does Facebook. Until recently, Friendster suffered from a vision and used command and control tactics to try to coerce its users that “it didn’t really want to do things that way??? and Friendster members abandoned in droves to platforms and experiences not so monitored by “mom and dad.???

A command and control grand vision doesn’t work when you develop an environment that needs to be truly both attractive and compelling much more than it needs to be informational or instructional. An SNS needs to be attractive, diversional, compelling, amusing, and entertaining – never limiting.

My analogy of college and high school never mentioned classrooms or classes for training or learning. People do enough of that at school and at work. An SNS needs to give its users a university campus without any expectations or concepts of dropping out, getting judged, doing homework, or being held accountable for anything.

A good SNS should be all late-night wine-influenced discussions of Descartes and Plato and the summer afternoons on the quad and the time playing Xbox with your roommates.

When I go onto my long-term online communities, the Well, The Meta Network, USENET, and Brainstorms, there are many very deep and very vertical communities, discussing things as frivolous as fashion and video games and as deep as how to survive cancer, how to get a post doc grant, and very deep discussions on “spirit,” “chaos theory,” and “world politics.”

What makes this amazing and sustainable is that there are an infinite number of ways to get along, to move into a space of intense conversation, and then to pull back into common areas, just to see who’s around. In a university setting, this could be the dining hall, the quad, the commons, etc. These spaces are very important.

If you think about all of this in terms of evolution, then we can think about the way things evolve in the most perverse ways when isolated from others of its kinds. So, if there are impervious walls – gaps or voids, mountains or ridges – between these vertical markets, SNS’s, and communities, then there may be an initial success, but there can also be a terrible volatility. One plague or drought can decimate a population completely.

Having a commons allows members and visitors to have a place to meet new people, have new experiences, and learn of new clubs, new opportunities, and new places – inbreeding versus crossbreeding. Ultimately, a diversity of visitors helps build a more resilient, invested, and self-identifing community. They will become “students for life??? at best and proud alums at worst. They will carry the brand awareness, even if their lives become too busy to participate any more.

They will become life long brand ambassadors for your community. Proud alumni.

And, in terms of “viral marketing,” it is also important when it comes to a member of an SNS “inviting his friends” – not all of my friends have the same vertical interests that I do… They could have very different interests – but as I explore the “commons” of an SNS, I can note that there are things happening online that “friend x” and “friend y” would love, and that would be my incentive to invite them on board.

Boompa? I am the only person I know in my entire community – that is not true, my buddy has an Audi S4 – who is into cars. My buddy is an Audi driver and I am a BMW driver. Does that mean we’re both drivers? Does that mean we love cars or our particular car? Do we cross over on performance sedans? On German cars? On luxury cars?

You have to offer the tools to allow the market to choose for itself, otherwise, you might never find out that the SNS needs all three, or none at all.

A “Modularized SNS” should be neutral like a university (unlike MySpace, which is pretty pre-defined as to what the demographic is), and there are lots of “vertical niche SNS’s” (e.g. car enthusiasts, gourmet cooking, travel, Rolex fans, Republican politicos, etc.) That way, everyone can form a SNS experience that actually fits them by modularly assembling the groups of people who have similar interests, (not just friends-in-common!)

The Waiting Room of Merchant’s Tire, originally uploaded by Chris Abraham.

I sat in this charming waiting room today for three hours at Merchant Tires in Arlington waiting for my Euro Sedan to get three new shoes: Continental Touring tires. One of the tires was brand new from a flat but the other three were pretty much bald. Nice rubber for a nice ride. They did a good job and I got to catch up on all of my 4×4 and sports car mags. My mom rolls in my BMW when I am in Berlin and mom deserves brand new rubber for safety’s sake!

Be honest: you bought that Prius for the prestige, didn’t you?

“More than half of the Prius buyers surveyed this spring by CNW Marketing Research of Bandon, Ore., said the main reason they purchased their car was that ‘it makes a statement about me’,” according to Say ‘Hybrid’ and Many People Will Hear ‘Prius.’

If you are truly environmentally conscious, you will car pool, take mass transit, ride a bike, walk, take a bus, telecommute, ride a motorcycle, or maybe buy a high-mileage car. Yes, 45-50 miles-per-gallon is great for a car; however, I own a 32 miles-per-gallon 2001 BMW 530i but never drive: I telecommute.

I bet you my high-performance sedan is more environmentally conscious parked in the street than your Prius is if you commute a couple hours every day.

For too many Americans, riding a bike is exercise and not transit and it should be. It really should be. Motorcycles, too, often get 50-miles-per-gallon and more, yet they don’t reflect the sort of wholesome, environmentally- and safety-consciousness Prius owners desire.

It’s all good, as long as you’re honest with yourself. Seriously.

The future of Social Network Services (SNS) can be discovered on High School and College campuses. I believe that topic-specific “vertical” SNS’s are very important, but I also think that the model needs to be University-like – a modularized SNS. There needs to be a campus “brand” (or University) within which the topic-specific “clubs,” “houses,” “fraternities,” “dorms,” and “interest groups” can interact – somewhere where crossovers, cross-fertilization, and aggregation are encouraged – no, needs – to happen. I hate SNS sites like boompa.com – a site devoted to your favorite cars – because I am not JUST a car guy.

I am a car guy for sure but I am also interested in rowing, in biking, in Thomas Pynchon, and in talk radio – Boompa might be successful in the short term, but in the long-term, the real power would come from creating a open, creative, resource-rich platform/campus/university/high school and maybe create a school of engineering, a liberal arts school, a law school, a dining hall, and so forth, but then allow the SNS to find itself.

To allow the SNS and its members to find their own voice, their own interests, and their own passions – which may well be very different from what is first assumed by the creator. Google gets this, though not yet within the construct of the SNS’s. What Google did do successfully was to buy USENET – the original newsgroups – and then build an superstructure on top of that – make it modern, sustainable, durable, and more readable.

Google returned USENET to relevance in a world that considered newsgroups and IRC to be dead or dying. Each and every one of communities on USENET is amazingly vertical, but they could all back up and back out to the larger USENET community – to the equivalent of the “welcome new students??? meetings and gatherings colleges offer to entering Freshmen.

Communities that are too vertical tend to shoe horn the “general topics??? conversations into hidden “off topic??? eddies. That is just the opposite of what should be done. The conversation should be general, cross-pollinating, and then move, after a conversation starts, into another room.

Start with an amazing platform, collect users, listen and watch them to see how they’re playing with the software application objects, widgets, and tools (are they playing with the toy or the box?), and then build for the users base, withholding judgment. Digg is a case study for this: start small, grow organically, and allow your members to find themselves.

The developers of Digg realized that after initial vertical growth based on the general members of Slashdot (techie, geeky, teens, boys), digg would suffer from the same sort of vulnerabilities that Slashdot suffered when Slashdot didn’t evolve and grow and broaden itself.

People love talking about Linux, but when happens when the Dow drops or the elections come? Where will the conversation happen? Where is the “kitchen??? at the party where every eventually goes to just talk about general interest stuff? Unless there are opportunities to express and share so-called “off-topic??? conversation right there, within the community in which members are already committed, with members to whom they’re already committed, then they are bound to go elsewhere.

Starting small and allowing the community to design itself is much different than starting big and losing one’s focus. Other mistakes happen when community builders make assumptions as to what participants, members, and lurkers want. Another mistake is putting a wall up around the community so that non-members cannot get a full feeling for the community from without.

The best SNS’s, virtual worlds, and online communities are honeypots. By honeypot, I am not suggesting, “a server that is configured to detect an intruder by mirroring a real production system. It appears as an ordinary server doing work, but all the data and transactions are phony. Located either in or outside the firewall, the honeypot is used to learn about an intruder’s techniques as well as determine vulnerabilities in the real system.” Although I am, sort of. The best SNS needs to be appealing, attractive, sweet, and compelling. Community-builders and SNS ASP developers need to be willing learn about member techniques, interests, processes, and needs, as well as determine “vulnerabilities” in the SNS platform that may repel, turn off, or limit the evolution and growth of the community.

To channel Chauncey Gardener for a second, one must do whatever one must to make sure that the earth in the garden is moist and well fed, one must seed well and completely, one must keep the garden in sun and water, one must encourage the garden to grow as it will for only in its growth will the garden be successful, and then, after rigorous growth, pruning and weeding must be done, only in order to allow the garden to be healthy, not to turn the garden into topiary. Okay, I am done.

Digg allows all of these things. Digg is perfectly useful and compelling even as an alien, but it is way more fun and interesting when you’re a citizen, that’s for sure. An SNS community needs to be as attractive as possible because exclusivity is no longer essential or even valuable. What is valuable is “useful,??? “interesting,??? and “authentic.??? They also have to have community buy-in and the best enjoy a certain fanatical devotion. Just like the best Universities and Colleges.

And Digg allowed its member to tell it when it was time to evolve past tech and geek news. Digg did not limit its scope or define itself too tightly with being “gear for geeks??? or “news for nerds.??? That would have ultimately been the death of Digg.

What the best Universities (such as Yale) understand is that it is not the student who is blessed and honored by being accepted by a top college (Yale College) but rather it is the college that should be blessed and honored (and should be grateful) that such a quality student is accepting its offers and actually attending – choosing – their particular school: Yale instead of Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Dartmouth, Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley, etc…

Harvard, too, is aware that although in the short-term Harvard makes the Harvard Man, over the long term, it is Harvard Men who made Harvard and continue to make Harvard. “Who have you graduated recently???? Unless the quality and character of its students and alumni remain top-drawer, Harvard is not guaranteed its position as “top three??? in USA Today alongside Princeton and Yale. No matter how grand its endowment.

So, Harvard and Yale spoil their students rotten! My friends who attended Harvard or Yale college swoon over those 4 years like I swoon over my first love.

Likewise, SNS’s, virtual worlds, and virtual communities need to realize that at any one point, their brand is only as good as the collective that is manifest in the users, the members, the lurkers, the stewards, and the alumni of the property.

This isn’t only true in SNS’s. The same thing can be said of the most successful message boards and online communities. The most important distinction, I think, is that all of these “rooms” and all of these “clubs” and all of these spaces where (and are) defined and created by the communities themselves. Sui generis. And this sort of ownership – “for us by us,??? as the slogan goes over as Howard Rheingold’s Brainstorms community – should never be underestimated.

The Well has Howard Rheingold as a member and alumnus, for example, and the credibility of all that he has made and done; over time, more and more virtual communities, virtual worlds, and SNS will be known for their members as well: who studies, who studied, and who wants to join.

“What’s in it for me??? (WIIFM) and the concept of pride of ownership are important – essential – ingredients of a sustainable, deep, thriving, and healthy community. The success of MySpace and of Facebook is that the verticals are not (were not) defined for them by their grand architects – they are self-creating, self-forming, and also self-destructing. They form, reform, mutate and disperse after they hit a limit of general conversation and then either break off and reform into an “interest group” or “club” or they self-check and work to “get back on topic.”

SNS’s and communities in general tend to be formed in one of two ways: like Paris or like London. Intelligence Design (architecture) or Emergent Design. The later never looks very beautiful or the way people – or the creators, investors, and architects – expect (or want) it to look, because investors and designers tend to not be able to control it – and when they do try to impost order, often in a heavy-handed way, they also tend to scare off all of their members, too.

This organic revolution has proven its success online time and time again. The Internet does not respond (well or at all) to command and control. The smartest Web 2.0 platforms allow the “masses of asses” (yes, the customer; yes, us) to define the platform and the experience – their own and collective environment and experience.

MySpace does this amazingly well and so does Facebook. Until recently, Friendster suffered from a vision and used command and control tactics to try to coerce its users that “it didn’t really want to do things that way??? and Friendster members abandoned in droves to platforms and experiences not so monitored by “mom and dad.???

A command and control grand vision doesn’t work when you develop an environment that needs to be truly both attractive and compelling much more than it needs to be informational or instructional. An SNS needs to be attractive, diversional, compelling, amusing, and entertaining – never limiting.

My analogy of college and high school never mentioned classrooms or classes for training or learning. People do enough of that at school and at work. An SNS needs to give its users a university campus without any expectations or concepts of dropping out, getting judged, doing homework, or being held accountable for anything.

A good SNS should be all late-night wine-influenced discussions of Descartes and Plato and the summer afternoons on the quad and the time playing Xbox with your roommates.

When I go onto my long-term online communities, the Well, The Meta Network, USENET, and Brainstorms, there are many very deep and very vertical communities, discussing things as frivolous as fashion and video games and as deep as how to survive cancer, how to get a post doc grant, and very deep discussions on “spirit,” “chaos theory,” and “world politics.”

What makes this amazing and sustainable is that there are an infinite number of ways to get along, to move into a space of intense conversation, and then to pull back into common areas, just to see who’s around. In a university setting, this could be the dining hall, the quad, the commons, etc. These spaces are very important.

If you think about all of this in terms of evolution, then we can think about the way things evolve in the most perverse ways when isolated from others of its kinds. So, if there are impervious walls – gaps or voids, mountains or ridges – between these vertical markets, SNS’s, and communities, then there may be an initial success, but there can also be a terrible volatility. One plague or drought can decimate a population completely.

Having a commons allows members and visitors to have a place to meet new people, have new experiences, and learn of new clubs, new opportunities, and new places – inbreeding versus crossbreeding. Ultimately, a diversity of visitors helps build a more resilient, invested, and self-identifing community. They will become “students for life??? at best and proud alums at worst. They will carry the brand awareness, even if their lives become too busy to participate any more.

They will become life long brand ambassadors for your community. Proud alumni.

And, in terms of “viral marketing,” it is also important when it comes to a member of an SNS “inviting his friends” – not all of my friends have the same vertical interests that I do… They could have very different interests – but as I explore the “commons” of an SNS, I can note that there are things happening online that “friend x” and “friend y” would love, and that would be my incentive to invite them on board.

Boompa? I am the only person I know in my entire community – that is not true, my buddy has an Audi S4 – who is into cars. My buddy is an Audi driver and I am a BMW driver. Does that mean we’re both drivers? Does that mean we love cars or our particular car? Do we cross over on performance sedans? On German cars? On luxury cars?

You have to offer the tools to allow the market to choose for itself, otherwise, you might never find out that the SNS needs all three, or none at all.

A “Modularized SNS” should be neutral like a university (unlike MySpace, which is pretty pre-defined as to what the demographic is), and there are lots of “vertical niche SNS’s” (e.g. car enthusiasts, gourmet cooking, travel, Rolex fans, Republican politicos, etc.) That way, everyone can form a SNS experience that actually fits them by modularly assembling the groups of people who have similar interests, (not just friends-in-common!)

Since Ford is reintroducing the Ford Taurus in 2008, I am reposting my article, God Save the Ford Taurus. It actually looks like an old Ford Escort. Ewww. Oh, and Ford, the word “heritage” is code for “racist.” What Ford needs to do is launch with the Ford Taurus SHO.

God Save the Ford Taurus

After just an evening and a morning, the Ford Taurus feels dangerous to me.

My car is in the shop and instead of giving me a loaner and leveraging word of mouth marketing the lovely people at BMW of Arlington instead set me up with an Enterprise Ford Taurus with 22k miles on her.

The Ford Taurus feels dangerous to me.

With all the yaw and sway in the suspension and the floppy give in the driver’s seat, I didn’t feel like I had very good control over the car, especially at speed.

Maybe BMW of Arlington does this just to remind their customers that no matter how luxe a BMW can get even in the form of a 750iL flagship sedan, a BMW is always a driver’s machine.

Compared to the Ford Taurus, my E39 530i feels like its on rails and rock solid.

Thank you BMW of Arlington for reminding me what I do have and all the blessings of my life.

I will never take Grace for granted.

RESS RELEASE:

FORD STRENGTHENS RETRO-80s LEADERSHIP WITH INTRODUCTION OF NEW 2008 TAURUS HERITAGE EDITION

* New edition features more than 5 engineering changes, making it more retro, cheezier, mellower and homlier.
* 2.5-liter High Swirl Combustion I-4 delivers an estimated 90 horsepower and 130 ft-lbs of torque.
* Ford Sync™ (not sink) offers new levels of connection, control, simplicity and personalization with the well known relability of Microsoft
* Taurus Heritage Edition will reach showrooms this fall.

CHICAGO, Feb. 7, 2007 – Ford Motor Company today announced it is bringing back the well-known Ford Taurus name, introducing a new special version – Heritage Edition – for its aging hipsters to go on sale this fall.

“Taurus has been an icon for rental sedans for more than two decades, and it’s time to return this powerful name to where it belongs,” said Mark Fields, Ford’s President of The Americas, at the Chicago Auto Show. “Consumer awareness of the Taurus name is double the Five Hundred that it’s replacing, and thats damn good enough for us to forget the latter altogether!.

“By giving these vehicles the bland looks of the 80′s that consumers recognize at the same time we’re making significant upgrades, we’re confident that even more rental companies are going to be attracted to these great products in the future,” Fields added.

The 2008-model Taurus Heritage Edition sedan will go on sale this fall, as an upgrade to the earth shattering ALL NEW Ford Taurus. The new Heritage Edition features a fully flush grille guard with peek-a-boo Ford emblem, a new dual color scheme, a new cornering light, more standard safety features – including dual airbags tuned to explode with that classic pop that made people file lawsuits in the early nineties– and other refinements to make it more retro, cheezier, mellower and homlier.

To quote me, the Ford F-150 Supercab pickup is “one hell of a truck. That is one hell of a vehicle. Four doors, solid construction, plenty of room and lots of power. None of the plasticy squeakiness that American cars are known for.”

It is better than my e39 530i BMW, and that is the best series of sedan ever built. Likewise, the Ford F-150 is the best truck. Hell, Sam Walton owned a red 1979 Ford F-150 pickup and his daughter Alice owns a 2006 Ford F-150 King Ranch!

Press Release:

Triumph for Bugatti Veyron

The Bugatti Veyron has wiped the floor with the opposition in Autocar’s annual 0-100-0mph contest, featured in the current issue of the world’s oldest car magazine, even managing to beat a Suzuki GSX-R1000 superbike.

Featuring 25 of the world’s fastest cars, from the 14th placed £79,995 Aston Martin V8 Vantage to the second-placed £34,995 Ariel Atom, the shoot-out pitches the cars against each other in a straight fight to see which is the fastest to 100mph. There’s more to it than just outright speed though – slowing from 100mph to a dead halt is just as important.

The Veyron, with its 987bhp 16-cylinder engine, wasn’t necessarily the favourite to win. “A low weight tends to be the key to a good 0-100-0mph car,” said Autocar’s road test editor Adam Towler. “Cars like the Ariel Atom and Caterham Superlight historically dominate this contest.”

But the 1890kg £880,000 Bugatti ripped through the gears to hit 60mph in 2.8sec and 100mph in an astonishing 5.5sec. It then stopped in just 3.4sec, giving a 0-100-0mph time of 9.9sec.

Not only is the Bugatti faster than the Suzuki, it creates more g-force at maximum acceleration than you’d experience in an F-16 jet fighter at take off or when skydiving.

But the lightweights still turned in an impressive performance, from the relatively unknown £32k Brooke Double R in fourth place to the £35k Ariel Atom 300 in second.

“Although the Veyron is undoubtedly the quickest road car ever, you can still have nearly as much fun for much less money,” said Adam Towler. “It’s good to see British sports cars doing so well against such an impressive machine as the Bugatti.”

Autocar also brought along an A1 GP car, driven by Brit Robbie Kerr, to see how a purpose-built race car would compare with road-going machinery. The 550bhp single seater weighs just 695kg, and proved to be the fastest vehicle on the day with a 0-100-0mph time of 8.4sec.

Competing Cars 0-100-0 Time (seconds)

A1 GP 8.40

Bugatti Veyron 9.90

Suzuki GSX-R1000 10.70

Ariel Atom S’Charged 11.00

Ariel Atom 450 11.05

Atom Private Owned 11.05

Caterham CSR260 11.95

Brooke Double R 12.50

Porsche 911 Turbo 12.50

Ford Focus WRC 13.57

Lambo Gallardo 13.65

Ascari KZ1 13.80

Corvette Z06 13.80

Alpina B6 14.80

BMW M6 14.95

TVR Tuscan 2 15.00

BMW M5 15.20

Audi RS4 15.80

Aston V8 Vantage 15.81

BMW Z4M Roadster 15.95

Porsche Cayman S 16.46

Lotus Exige S 16.60

Nissan 350Z 18.80

Vauxhall Astra Sprint 18.85

Vauxhall Astra VXR 19.05

Renault Megane F1 20.55

Mazda 6MPS 21.00

Ford Focus ST 21.35

Vauxhall Vectra VXR 22.35

Vauxhall Astra Thurlby 22.65