Earlier, The Truth About Cars (TTAC) conducted a survey having its faithful and candid readers as respondents. The survey is all about tracking the Ten Worst Automobile Today (TWAT) from all the vehicles available in the United States within this year. The polls and tallying are closed. Further, the winners are yet to be unraveled. The winners of the 2006 TTAC Ten Worst Automobile Today awards are the following:
On the tenth place is Chevrolet Aveo. The automaker claims that said car is the lowest [new] car in America however; the contents of the vehicle may vary. In the United States and Canada, Aveo is available in both 5-door and 4-door models. Chevrolet Aveo sedan debuted in January this year at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show. Lincoln Mark LT landed on the ninth place. According to TTAC's voters, the car is an unholy degradation of the world-famous Lincoln Mark nomenclature. In addition, it is said that the Mark LT is a rolling testament to Dearborn's short-term, suicidal reliance on bean-counted engineering.
Saab 9-7x entered in the eighth place of the TWAT. Voters say that the car is nothing more than a Chevy Trailblazer with the ignition key between the seats. Subaru B9 Tribeca, a crossover SUV, settled on the seventh place. Some enthusiasts are saying Subaru should not have bothered building an SUV.
On the sixth place is Chevrolet Monte Carlo, which is said to be a wrong wheel-drive engineering joke from the late '80's. Next on the line is the Hummer H2. The latter, according to some, is so heavy that IRS will give the purchaser a tax break because you just bought a piece of commercial farm equipment. They further added that it looks like a school bus from behind and a morbidly obese Cherokee from every other angle.
The fourth placer is Chrysler Aspen. Simon and Garfunkel said, "Every way you look at this you lose." Some of the comments to this car are: It's ugly. It's thirsty. It's slow. It's badly built. It's cramped. It's expensive. Landing on the third place is Buick Rendezvous, which is based on a 1997 minivan.
Jeep Compass landed on the second place. Jeep auto parts that include round headlights and a 7-slot grill made Compass repulsive to TTAC enthusiasts.
Finally, the worst among the worst belong to General Motors. GM Minivans Talk emerged as the TTAC's accolade as the worst vehicles currently for sale in America. Chevrolet Uplander, Pontiac SV6, Buick Terraza, and Relay that boasts its Saturn auto body parts fall short of pleasing aficionados.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Friday, July 14, 2006
Brief History of Blogs
So where did all these blogs come from? How did they get from an underground geek toy to a mainstream tool that has revolutionized politics, journalism, marketing and the media?
I always find that when I learn about a new technology or way of doing something online, the geeks have already been there (and I say the word ‘geek’ with complete affection – I’m one too!). Before business became inseparable from the computer, email or the internet, the academics and tinkerers were there first, kicking the tires and playing with the technology. Blogging was no exception.
Many of the earliest internet geeks wrote online journals detailing interesting links and points of view. As this was before programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver, everything was done by hand - and that was a huge hassle. Each time you updated the site, you ran the risk of breaking links inside the website and leaving your readers stranded with the dreaded ‘page not found’ error. Eventually, the computer programmers and web designers became fed up with all of this manual work and created their own software to automate the process of updating their journal websites. Thus the weblog was born.
In 1999, a website called Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/) launched, offering free blogs to anybody and everybody that wanted them. Blogger provided the blog tool for free as well as the hosting space to host a blog. Millions of people from all over the world logged on and start creating their own weblogs.
The largest conversation in the world had begun. Blogs have changed the way academics do research, journalists write, families connect and politicians fundraise. It was only a matter of time before businesses woke up and realized the power of blogging for marketing online.
Blogging provides a way for companies and customers to meet on common ground to talk about what excites them and makes them tick. It also allows them to closely track where and under what circumstances their products are being talked about online.
Today, blogging continues to grow at a swift pace with more than 400,000 posts added per day and 12,000 new blogs being created every day. Millions of people look to blogs for a good laugh, a great idea, a fantastic tip or an instant analysis. The blogosphere doubles in size every 5 months, allowing anyone, anywhere, in any language, to make their mark in the world to share their ideas, passion and products.
‘Blog’ was the word of the year for 2004 according to Merriam-Webster, the famous dictionary publisher. The year 2004 marked a turning point for blogs as a sought after media format. Now it was seen as a venue for gathering large audiences of devoted readers who used blogs to supplement, compliment and fact-check their nightly news.
My favorite milestone for blogging was when 'Blogs' appeared as a category on the Jeopardy game show. I'll take blogging for one thousand, Alex!
Andy Wibbels is a blogging evangelist and creator of the Easy Bake Weblogs seminar that has helped hundreds of small businesses all over the world leverage blogs and RSS news feeds to increase profits and save time. You can download his free special report on business and blogs at http://easybakeweblogs.com/
I always find that when I learn about a new technology or way of doing something online, the geeks have already been there (and I say the word ‘geek’ with complete affection – I’m one too!). Before business became inseparable from the computer, email or the internet, the academics and tinkerers were there first, kicking the tires and playing with the technology. Blogging was no exception.
Many of the earliest internet geeks wrote online journals detailing interesting links and points of view. As this was before programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver, everything was done by hand - and that was a huge hassle. Each time you updated the site, you ran the risk of breaking links inside the website and leaving your readers stranded with the dreaded ‘page not found’ error. Eventually, the computer programmers and web designers became fed up with all of this manual work and created their own software to automate the process of updating their journal websites. Thus the weblog was born.
In 1999, a website called Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/) launched, offering free blogs to anybody and everybody that wanted them. Blogger provided the blog tool for free as well as the hosting space to host a blog. Millions of people from all over the world logged on and start creating their own weblogs.
The largest conversation in the world had begun. Blogs have changed the way academics do research, journalists write, families connect and politicians fundraise. It was only a matter of time before businesses woke up and realized the power of blogging for marketing online.
Blogging provides a way for companies and customers to meet on common ground to talk about what excites them and makes them tick. It also allows them to closely track where and under what circumstances their products are being talked about online.
Today, blogging continues to grow at a swift pace with more than 400,000 posts added per day and 12,000 new blogs being created every day. Millions of people look to blogs for a good laugh, a great idea, a fantastic tip or an instant analysis. The blogosphere doubles in size every 5 months, allowing anyone, anywhere, in any language, to make their mark in the world to share their ideas, passion and products.
‘Blog’ was the word of the year for 2004 according to Merriam-Webster, the famous dictionary publisher. The year 2004 marked a turning point for blogs as a sought after media format. Now it was seen as a venue for gathering large audiences of devoted readers who used blogs to supplement, compliment and fact-check their nightly news.
My favorite milestone for blogging was when 'Blogs' appeared as a category on the Jeopardy game show. I'll take blogging for one thousand, Alex!
Andy Wibbels is a blogging evangelist and creator of the Easy Bake Weblogs seminar that has helped hundreds of small businesses all over the world leverage blogs and RSS news feeds to increase profits and save time. You can download his free special report on business and blogs at http://easybakeweblogs.com/
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