General Motors launched its new eBay initiative today. General Motors is now selling cars and trucks on the auction website in an attempt to regain some of it’s lost market share. The bidding process for this works a little differently than a typical eBay bid, vehicles will not be auctioned to the highest bidder but rather listed at a “buy it now” price equal to the supplier price. Shoppers also can submit a lower offer that the dealer can accept or reject. Right now this venture involves 90% of G.M’s dealerships in California but the company is hoping this will expand nationally as soon as September.

If G.M’s endeavor succeeds it could change the way American’s buy cars. In the past 10 years, more than three million vehicles have moved on eBay Motors, which records 12 million unique visitors every month. G.M. hopes eBay, which claims 84 million active users worldwide, will help it “reach potential buyers who might not otherwise visit a G.M. dealership.”

G.M. is the first automaker to sell new vehicles on eBay, to learn more visit the dedicated portal, gm.ebay.com

Much like google adsense, your tweets can now bring in the bucks! It works a little differently, rather then having google sponsored links your Twitter account is actually sponsored by the advertiser for the period of time you allow.To do this is simple:

1 ) Post your Twitter Account for advertisers to sponsor
2 ) Select duration and price
3 ) Wait for sponsorship
4 ) Accept or deny the offer
5 ) The ad will then be posted to your profile using Twitter API
6 ) 1 Tweet promo is sent
7 ) Final Tweet is sent at end of duration
8 ) $$$

To find out more check it out here.

ESPN issued 12 guidelines to it’s employees about social networking this week. These guidelines state that on-air talent, reporters and writers are prohibited from having sports-related blogs or websites…essentially competing sports related content. But it does note that they will soon deploy modules to simultaneously link employee tweets, etc to various ESPN websites. For more click here.

Channel 13 just released a great online video series featuring Brooklyn manufacturing businesses that despite trends, are sticking it out in Brooklyn.  Click here to view

Social media seeped into the business world awhile back with LinkedIn…and of course rated PG Facebook pages. Now while I am dedicated to my multiple social media pages, I’ve wanted something more comprehensive that had all my news and business contacts that I share articles with in one place…

I swear the good people of Business Week read my mind when they created Business Exchange. Business Exchange is like Digg for business people. It gives members of the Web community the ability to create new discussion topics collaboratively. The really great thing about Business Exchange is it isn’t pre-populated with Business Week stories…it pulls from content all across the web.

Another exciting thing about Business Exchange aside from providing access to relevant business information is that you can connect your LinkedIn page to it. So now people can leverage their profile in a new environment.

Word of mouth has been around as long as talking, but in a world that has become increasingly technology centric…there is a “New Word of Mouth.”

Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) is a comparably new phenomenon. Everything from blogs to viral, to referral programs, to social media have been called WOMM. But consumers want more, they don’t want planted positive comments on the net from “consumers” they want something real, a new way to be engaged.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of WOMM I think of someone looking at me in the eye and saying “XYZ product is awesome, I mean it’s not perfect but here’s what it did…” I want something real, I want to connect and engage with someone real…a real consumer.

The “new word of mouth” does this digitally; the new word of mouth amplifies the consumer conversation. The new word of mouth is real and honest and its something that 81 million U.S. consumers engage with daily. It’s Broadband Video.

Broadband Video when done right shows that the new word of mouth” can’t be faked or contrived. If it weren’t real it’d be like asking your grandfather on Thanksgiving if he’d been sneaking the schnapps…you’d smell it a mile away.