I’ll admit it - I really couldn’t care less about whether I can twitter from the driver’s seat of my new car. Do I really want to update my Facebook page from a car seat before I go anywhere? No. I’m not a “digital native” and live in the “real” world where driving is about me and the car, where I’m going and enjoying the experience while I’m at it. Call me a luddite, but I still haven’t learned to integrate the social networking aspects of my life into my general life on weekends, let alone worry about it when I’m off to work or the shops in my car.

Still, in-car tech seems to be the next frontier in luring young drivers and consumers and showing off the latest about integrating the car into the owner’s lifestyle. Apparently we’re living our lives just as much virtually as we are in real “reality” (what do we even call that anymore?). After checking out the Ford Evos Concept and the new Mercedes A-Class connectivity on the concept model, in this BMW 1 Series test drive video from Fifth Gear we get another look at in-car social networking.

The problem for us is understanding where our work as bloggers and journalists leaves off, and where real world consumer decisions are made. While it’s handy to be able to connect up your smartphone when you camera’s gone bust to film a test drive, that’s clearly not something the average consumer needs.

As Fifth Gear points out though, the BMW 1 Series, when hooked up to a smartphone, can help you twitter, go on Facebook and Google, read the news and check the weather (a bit ridiculous in the video itself when you can plainly see that it is bucketing down without a smartphone to tell you that fact). Anyway, if you’re interested in the lifestyle aspects of the BMW 1 Series, especially the virtual ones, rather than just how it drives, check out the video.

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If you want to steal younger car customers away from other brands the best way to do that so far seems to be to offer them everything their life packed into their Smartphone can handle, on the inside of the car. Mercedes Benz quotes one of its users as saying “I don’t want my life to stop when I get into my car” and so here are the new connectivity solutions being offered on the Mercedes A-Class concept.

The Concept A has quite a futuristic interior and the infotainment system graphics are described as “revolutionary”. While they might appeal more to geeks than to “digital natives”, they do suit the car and get the message across. What is the message? Much like the Ford Evos Concept, the Mercedes Concept A interior and connectivity is all about continuing your lifestyle on the inside of your car. Although for our money, Ford seemed more focused on providing a new driving experience and way of thinking, rather than possibility to update your Facebook status.

The Mercedes system means you can Twitter away while actually in your car as smartphone apps are made accessible by the car’s connectivity system. All this “while you’re driving”, although Mercedes does actually clarify that the intuitive system has been developed with minimal driver distraction so that customers can keep their eyes on the road.

That’s nice to know - we have visions of lots of distracted driving or alternatively lots of people sitting in parked cars, maybe in their garages, as they Twitter before entering their own home…. On the whole, though, it’s pretty cool stuff - see how the new Mercedes A-Class concept connectivity works in the video above.

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