One longtime criticism of automakers is that new car designs sometimes have little to do with what consumers actually want in a vehicle. In the last two weeks, two major carmakers are answering that criticism and turning to social media tools in the process.

G.M. declares, “We want your opinion” with its launch of the Lab, which is available online and through an iPhone app. It’s a spot where consumers can see ideas on the drawing board and offer thoughts.

Dave Rand, the outgoing head of global advanced design at G.M., summed it up for the New York Times:

“We are showing things we’d never shown before and learning how people react. This is valuable because it gives us something we do not get from traditional market research or auto shows.”

It also brings a once highly secretive design process into the light of day.

Audi is also going to the social masses via Facebook with its Audi Design Challenge, which is all about what cars should be like in the future. They’re bringing their 325,000+ fans into the design process and asking for feedback along the way. With any luck, maybe Audi will bring us back a car that Tweets or Facebooks for us.

There was once a time when being a “geek’ was considered, well, uncool.

That was before the geeks changed the world and became, well, cool.

Today, being a geek is a badge of honor. Today’s geeks live on the cutting edge of technology, art, film, music, design, gaming, social media and all things forward thinking.

The geeks have wired our lives, connected us and made our interactions and entertainments more interesting, more interactive and more fulfilling.

Today’s geeks also like to have fun, a lot of fun.

So, this November 6-8, “geeks” from across the nation are going to assemble in Savannah, Georgia, for the first ever Geekend.

Geekend brings together the brightest geeks, designers, artists, social media mavericks and entrepreneurs who are making waves and inventing the future today.

BFG is proud to be a partner with New Moon of Savannah, The Creative Coast Alliance and others to bring this unique, fun and cool event to coastal Georgia.

Become a fan of Geekend on Facebook and Twitter and pass the word and this November 6-8, head to Savannah and get your geek on.

Occasionally everyone gets pulled into the grasp of one of those internet time sucks (see all those Facebook quizzes or Yearbook yourself apps for definitive proof). What I am talking about are those apps or sites that serve no other real purpose than to entertain tired and bored mind.

The Sonacom Experience is just such a time and mind bender.

It’s a weird, psychedelic, flash-based fun house of intense, mash-up sounds and tripped out visuals that visitors can while away the hours with and beware, it’s mildly addictive.

Click on the floating orbs and let the sonic and visual fun begin. Over on the side you’ll notice a color wheel. Each turn of the wheel is labeled with words like emotion, aggression and vibration and by clicking on these words the mood of the aural and visual experience changes. Once you’ve created a picture on the screen that you are particularly drawn to it allows you to save it as a downloadable pic.

The whole thing is the home page for a Paris-based design and production company called Sonacom.

It’s that time of year again, time to vote on next year’s SXSW panels. As you dig into the SXSW panel picker, be sure to check our submission and give us a thumbs up vote.

Our panel, “My Dog Tweets: Bringing Personality to Twitter,” is all about the growing world of what I refer to as Twiction. From dogs (yes, my dog does Tweet) and a lake monster to a Roaming Gnome and TV personalities, Twitter is becoming a platform for storytelling in short bites. Brands can learn a lot from Twiction and should start getting involved. Many of the Twictional Tweets I check out give me a break in my day, often making me laugh. That could be powerful turf for brands, films, writers, etc.

What we’re seeing out there now is just the beginning. There’s much to explore and hopefully we can do so at SXSWi next March. Maybe my dog will even make a cameo.

Happy voting!

The band Radiohead continue to push the boundaries of how digital music is disseminated and are giving more of their music away for free.

In a statement posted along with links to the MP3, Greenwood shot down the rumors that the song was part of some elaborate EP scheme, saying that the band had the completed version of the song that had been lying around for a while, and they decided to release it, since they’ll be playing it on a brief UK/European tour later this month.

“So here’s a new song, called ‘These Are My Twisted Words.’ We’ve been recording for a while, and this was one of the first we finished. We’re pretty proud of it,” Greenwood wrote. “There’s other stuff in various states of completion, but this is one we’ve been practicing, and which we’ll probably play at this summer’s concerts. Hope you like it.”

The “Twisted Words” download comes with a PDF artwork file (lots of tendril-like tree branches) made by Yorke and longtime Radiohead collaborator Stanley Donwood. It also includes instructions from the band: “We suggest you print these images out on tracing paper … use at least 80 gsm tracing paper or your printer will eat it, as we discovered. You could put them in an order that pleases you.”

The song “These Are My Twisted Words” is a real, late night Radiohead groover that does not disappoint in the least if you are a fan of the bands pysche-rock hypnotic sound.

[via MTV news]

When a company grows as successfully as Facebook, they need to spread their wings and that’s exactly what Mr. Zuckerberg’s Facebooker army has recently done in California by moving into their new headquarters. Initially, as the company grew from a small idea cooked up in a dorm room to its current gargantuan “Master of the Social Networking Universe” size, the growing staff of Facebookers was spread out across 10 separate buildings around Palo Alto.

Not anymore. Now they can all survey the social networking heights together under one roof in their new centralized (and eco-friendly) HQ in the Stanford Research Park.

The building itself is the first to be designed and built under the Palo Alto 2008 green building ordinance and it utilizes all kinds of repurposed industrial items to create a space that encourages creativity and where employees can let off some steam and have a good time. As far as the design went, they used Facebook to solicit ideas from employees about how they’d like their new work space to look and feel:

Prior to the move, the physical manifestation of Facebook the company was very similar to the virtual network it created. Lots of people in separate places connecting online. Over time, each of these offices developed distinct personalities. From the beginning of the design process, Studio O+A knew that it would be important to get a wide range of input about wants and needs for the new office from as many employees as possible. The Facebook platform was used to conduct company-wide polls about design decisions, post construction photos and updates, and keep everyone informed of the thought process behind the project.

And while Facebook has some nice new California digs to work from, we at BFG really like where we spend our work days. Check out these pix of our HQ on Flickr (where we like to spin a little wax as much as the Facebookers).

If you haven’t gotten a chance to see some of the awesome things coming out of the world of Augmented Reality, get ready, because it’s coming sooner than you think. Mobile devices like the newest Apple iPhone 3G S and Google’s Android phone are now equipped with the technologies like GPS, video and accelerometers and by combining all of these they can bring these augmented worlds to life.

Essentially Augmented Reality is created using a symbol that a computer can read and then it can impose 3-D images on that symbol. It lets you see things, in 3-D, that are not there. Think about it like you’ll have what the BBC calls “Cyborg Vision” (the way the Terminator character sees the world - with an array of information surrounding each object it looks at).

The potential applications for Augmented Reality, from science, entertainment, media, medicine, travel, the arts, etc., are boundless and because of this it really is one of the most exciting fields emerging in technology today.

[Augmented Reality] is going to create an entertainment and marketing tsunami that will make the Internet look like a pond ripple. The key shift will likely occur when the lens becomes wearable. Invisible even. Contacts or glasses that look just like the ones you wear now, allowing you to cross into a 3D interactive world seamlessly transposed onto your reality.

Some of the simplest applications out there are those that help you to find your way around. For instance, this app here allows you to find the nearest New York City subway station utilizing the iPhone’s camera.

For this one below, imagine walking into a bar and you’ve got this augmented reality symbol tattooed on your arm - now imagine that there are large screen monitors all over the bar with cameras pointed at the patrons - as the camera picks up the symbol (whether a tattoo or an image on a shirt) the augmented version shows up on the screens. The augmented images would definitely make for some lively bar conversation and enhance people’s pick up lines: “Hi, I like the dancing demonoid on your arm.”

Here’s another example along the same lines.

Stay tuned because the world of Augmented reality is going to become your reality sooner than you think. This video is two years old but gives some cool examples of where the technology was and where it is going.

A few months ago BFG Communications partnered with the Savannah College of Art and Design for the first Creative Seed Initiative, which brings in speakers who work in various world’s of art and design. The first speakers were Dan Ibarra and Mike Byzewski from Minneapolis-based rock poster company Aesthetic Apparatus. If you were not able to attend or were not able to catch it streaming live on UStream then you can check out now. It’s in seven parts (click below) and you can catch these and all of our videos on our YouTube channel.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

With print on the wane, where’s a super connected fashionista to turn these days for regular updates on the world of fashion? Facebook and Twitter of course.

Yves Saint Laurent is the latest luxury brand to jump into the social media world, recently launching an official page on Facebook and Twitter. The timing seems right with Fashion Week coming up. So far, they’ve been keeping fans up to date on celebrities spotted in YSL duds and the latest brand videos.

Betsey Johnson has gone further, as one would expect from the bold designer. Her social media mix of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube brings the Betsey fashion info and promos fans would want but also access to the designer. To celebrate her 67th birthday (which is today), Johnson has been popping into her NYC stores for parties with customers, letting them know about the appearances through social media.

Johnson’s birthday parties and the way they’ve been tied into her Facebook and Twitter pages reveal the kind of access fans crave. Access and the ability to connect with a revered designer is one of those things that sets the digital and social media world apart from print.

This summer, Travelocity brought its beloved gnome to social networks like Twitter and Facebook as the Roaming Gnome embarked on a six week summer adventure. Starting at the end of June, he’s been spreading the word about his travels online and getting fans to help choose his destinations.

The gnome has been to Chicago, Vegas, Philadelphia, Hawaii, Yellowstone and is now wrapping up his adventures in San Diego (sounds like a good summer break to me). His more than 13,000 fans on Twitter and Facebook have also been encouraged to get involved beyond just voting. For those lucky folks who have spotted the gnome in action, they’ve been sharing photos as part of an online contest. Of course, Travelocity has thrown in some special deals along the way, as well.

Travelocity’s approach here does something important: It shows off the brand’s personality, reminding people that travel is fun. It’s also getting brand super fans involved and engaged in places where they’re already spending a great deal of time. I see a lot of potential for brands to take similar approaches within social media and bring what I like to call Twiction to the masses.