Thanks to Toyota and Salesforce, the 2012 Prius can tweet.
As the first car manufacturer to embrace a fully connected car, Toyota defines its 'Toyota Friend' initiative as "a private social network for Toyota customers and their cars" on its official site. With the assistance of Salesforce's 'Chatter Communities' Service, cars, service agents, and Toyota consumers will all be connected to a single social hub that promotes troubleshooting, and directly links people to local car dealerships and mechanics.
Toyota President Akio Toyoda states, "Social networking services are transforming human interaction and modes of communication. The automobile needs to evolve in step with that transformation. I am always calling for Toyota to make even-better cars. The alliance that we annonce today is an important step forward in achieving that goal."
On the customer side of Toyota friend, the social network communicates with the car and provides useful information such as: Lifetime mileage, service history, battery level charge, and fuel level. The car's profile also indicates the range that it can travel based on its diagnostics at the time.
During a live stage demo at Cloudforce 2012 in Manhattan that Latinos Post attended, Salesforce showed the 2012 Toyota Prius tweeting that its tires were out of alignment. Through the Toyota Friend hub, customers will be directed towards a map of nearby mechanics that can fix the problem and provides the ability to make an appointment without ever having to leave the page.
Should a more specific problem arise, such as an iPhone not streaming music into the car's speakers, iPhone users will be able to initiate a FaceTime video chat with service agents.
Toyota friend can be accessed from any smart device.
Speaking on Salesforce's partnership with Toyota, CEO Mark Benioff states, "Toyota and salesforce.com share a vision to take the auto industry into the future. Social and mobile technologies will transform the car ownership experience, and we are excited to be Toyota's partner in this trasnformation."