The carnage in the auto industry may be about to hit Silicon Valley.
Toyota is considering close NUMMI, a Fremont, California vehicle-assembly plant that it has been operating jointly with General Motors.
To advertise its third-generation Prius hybrid, Toyota is playing a bit of word association with potential customers.
With help from advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, the car maker is working with Dictionary.com for ads targeted to the definitions of words such as “sustainability,” “green” and “moonroof.” Those keyword-based ads launched last week, but Prius also took over the online dictionary’s home page Wednesday and Thursday, with another two-day takeover planned for July. Dictionary.com has also included Prius ads in its word-of-the-day emails, which reach 1.3 million subscribers.
Even as gas prices hover around $3.80 a gallon, many Americans still drive their gas-hogging SUVs, mini-vans and trucks. Some of these vehicles get as low as 10 to 12 miles per gallon on the highway. The problem is that it is still cheaper to just fill up your tank for $100, rather than shell out $25,000 or more to buy a new fuel-efficient car, such as a hybrid Toyota Prius, which uses a combination of gas and electric power.
Slide, the company that makes Facebook’s most popular apps, says it’s done making new ones for the social network. Keith Rabois, VP of strategy and business development, told us this week that the company wants to concentrate on making the existing apps like FunWall and Top Friends better–and ultimately figure out how to generate real money from them.
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