Regardless of which type of person you are, when I say Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, you know exactly who I am talking about. These three gentlemen took the subject of “cars” out of the realm of strictly petrol-heads and made them fun, exciting, fun and even darn funny. Since leaving the BBC and Top Gear, the trio continue their misadventures on Amazon Prime with their latest show The Grand Tour which sees the guys get up to their old mischief around the world.
What is DRIVETRIBE ?
The three have launched a new social media platform called DRIVETRIBE which is explained slightly differently by each person.
Richard Hammond said to Tech Crunch that : “Gamers have got Twitch, travellers have got TripAdvisor and fashion fans have got, oh, something or other too. But people who are into cars have got nowhere. There’s no grand-scale online motoring community where people can meet and share video, comments, information and opinion. DriveTribe will change that. And then some.”
James May added: “This is pure digital inclusivity. Some of the world’s most endangered tribes — Volvo enthusiasts, for example — will now have a voice as loud as everyone else’s.”
Jeremy best explains it as only he can as:
DRIVETRIBE takes the social media elements that we are used such as Likes, Comments and Sharing and stufs it into one new social media dedicated exclusively to all things motoring related. But here is the “catch” – not everyone can create content on the system and this is what makes DRIVETRIBE unique.
DRIVETRIBE is run by motoring creatives based around the world who were hand picked to run Tribes in their respective country. Each creator is responsible for their own Tribe where they showcase their own car-related-body of work in the form of comments, photos and videos. Regular muggles like me are able to sign up and follow not only Jeremy, Richard and James, but also individual Tribes from around the world. And this is where it gets interesting.
One of these Tribe Leaders from South Africa is Matthew Kanniah who runs a Tribe called Heart of Motion which I met while when we were both on a Ford Mustang Motoring Press event. I asked Matthew about what can we expect to see on Drive Tribe “You can expect to find Tribes, a name given to specific pages each different from one another to show all forms of online motoring journalism. Just like all social media bumps are Drive Tribes version of likes.”
Who would be interested in Drivetribe? Matthew confirms that “If you like old Top Gear and The Grand Tour you should be signing up! It’s everything about Clarkson, Hammond and May and now me! It’s everything about the boys, cars and not cars. It’s open to all who like just about anything! Even if you don’t like cars, you’ll find something you’ll be interested in.” According to Ernesto Schmitt, Co-Founder and CEO of DRIVETRIBE is quoted as, “there are over 400 million motoring fans on Facebook alone. In spite of motoring’s near universal appeal across a diverse range of audiences, not one of the Top 500 web destinations is dedicated to cars. DRIVETRIBE will change that by not only helping to create and house original content from thousands of creators around the world, but also by using technology and artificial intelligence to optimize that content for specific audiences.”
[UPDATE 10 December 2016: Matthew has been shortlisted to work with Jeremy, Richard and James ! All he needs is people to join his tribe which you can do here (no selling and no spam)]
The platform dedicated to all-things-motoring has raised $5.5. million in Series A funding round led by Breyer Capital with Atomico and other individual investors and then a $6.5 million investment by 21st Century Fox. So clearly there is a great appetite for a subject focused network. Peter Rice, chief executive of Fox Networks Group said to Business Insider that “We saw the Drive Tribe platform and we were blown away by its ingenuity.”
Being a non-car guy I signed up (it’s free) and so far its been very entertaining. Check out Matthew’s Tribe here and get in on the action !
some of what Matthew has been up to:
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