On Monday, Toyota unveiled plans to develop a private social network, for its vehicle owners in partnership with San Francisco cloud-computing company Salesforce.com. Alex Eichler at The Atlantic Wire has the story:

Toyota Friend's not going to come along till next year, and at first it will only be available in Japan. The Wall Street Journal reports that a "global roll out" will occur later in 2012. Users will be able to access Toyota Friend on smartphones, computers--indeed, "all devices including the car," according to ZDNet. (But only if that car is electric or hybrid: it's not yet clear whether Toyota will include the service with gas-powered cars.)

And what do you do once you're on Toyota Friend? Well, you can surf the network for maintenance tips and company news. You can figure out where the nearest charging station is. You can exchange messages with other drivers (and make your exchanges visible on Facebook and Twitter, if you choose). When you're away from your car, you can log on and check to see whether its battery is getting low.