Pimping MyRide

Autobytel Inc., an internet marketing services company for the automotive industry, announced at the 2007 National Automobile Dealers Association Conference the upcoming launch of its consumer website, MyRide.com. A polite baby-blue screen is pretty much all that currently exists at the address, but in the second quarter Autobytel promises “the world’s first fully-integrated automotive vertical search experience.”

MyRide.com seeks to act as a single comprehensive gateway to the “vast array of information available on the internet related to all aspects of the automotive purchase and ownership lifecycle.” The ‘site will feature automotive content with categorized auto search results from across the web, and more marketing touch points for dealers, manufacturers and service providers.

The ‘site hopes to address what company PR claims is the 70 percent of car buyers that research their automotive purchases on the internet beforehand, and specifically to alleviate the reported one-third of all such searches that are abandoned.

MyRide.com was designed and programmed by Autobytel partners Vast and Kosmix.

Autobytel Inc. owns and operates the websites Autobytel.com, Autoweb.com, CarSmart.com, Car.com, and CarTV.com. Among the companies marketing, advertising and CRM products are its Web Control customer management system, Retention Performance Marketing service reminder program, and Special Finance LeadsSM. Folks in Autobytel PR take a page from Al Gore’s book (the metaphorical books that is, and not the environmentally-friendly ones printed on unrecycled paper) in claiming that the firm “invented the automotive internet in 1995.”