You are currently browsing the archives for the Make category.

GM’s Chevy Sponsors Green Group Blog

Best of Green_Header

As part of its celebration of Earth Day 2008, Chevy kicked off a sponsorship of a green “group blog,” Best of the Green Web.

Best of Green_Mission Statement

GM partnered with FM to scout sites that cover environmental topics — from design and trend-spotting sites such as Core77, TrendHunter, Boing Boing and Uncrate to do-it-yourself sites like Make and start-up news sites ReadWriteWeb and VentureBeat. For those of you headed to Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA, this weekend, you better arrive on your garage-built compressed air moped:

Make’s Air Powered Moped

One post on the site (sourced from ReadWriteWeb) profiles a company, BadBuster, that makes a widget that grades the eco-friendliness of large, public companies — including GM. According to the widget, GM’s environmental-performance glass is a little better than half full (or, of course, nearly half empty). It’s doing better than its North American and German rivals but is still behind its Japanese competitors.

It’s refreshing to see that kind of content on a sponsored site. Clearly this is real content, not something pumped out by GM’s PR team. With its honesty it sends the message that Chevy is committing to the green conversation in a way that goes beyond “green washing.”

Announcing that it just launched a lithium-ion prototype Chevy Volt doesn’t take away from that perception either.

Credits: Adam Erhard and the GM Planworks team, along with Marcia Simmons, Matt Jessell and Jared Katzman at FM.

RadioShack, Make Launch Invention Lab Site

Last week RadioShack and DIY mag Make teamed up on the Innovation Lab site, which invites technically inclined visitors to “Share project ideas, completed projects and project horror stories for your chance to win a $250 RadioShack gift certificate.” One idea that’s racking up votes is a build-it-yourself lie detector. Uh oh, the editorial team at ChasNote better shape up!

RadioShack’s Invention Lab

More at the FM blog.

Honda Targets Ads to Tag Clouds

As part of their “Power of Dreams” campaign, Honda has roadblocked pages of Boing Boing that are tagged innovation, environment, and safety. It lets Boing Boing do what it’s always done — create a quirky “directory of wonderful things” — while connecting the Honda brand with an authentic conversation about themes core to its identity.

Boing Honda

Make is part of the fun, too.