Article Source: Wall Street Journal
Article Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123915162156099499.html
Article Author: Matthew Dolan
Article Date: 08-Apr-09
From the Article :
“Auto makers must boost fuel economy under new government regulations, and a sure way to do that is promote small cars. But that poses a challenge for Detroit: How can the Big Three battle back in a market segment dominated by foreign rivals such as Toyota and Honda?
The latest attempt is just getting under way at Ford Motor Co. The company has picked 100 young, Web-savvy drivers to get behind the wheel of its new Ford Fiesta subcompact for six months and post their impressions on sites such as YouTube, Flickr and Twitter.”
“Ford selected the 100 participants from more than 4,000 video submissions viewed more than 640,000 times online. Ford assigned applicants two scores: a “social vibrancy” rating based on how much they were followed online and across how many platforms; and an overall grade based on those factors plus creativity, video skills and their ability to hook a viewer within the first five to 10 seconds.”
