By Lindsey Campbell, Captains of Industry
Hey Captains’ Readers,
Sorry I was a no show yesterday. I had to nurse my baby back to health. And when I refer to my baby, I mean my 2003 Toyota Corolla. With the help of the Glass Doctors, I think she’ll pull through. A special shout out to Dr. Mike for comforting me when I didn’t think she would make it.
Now on to the show:
1. First the neighborhood, then the world!
According to the Captains’ favorite marketing guru David Meerman Scott, not only can web videos help local businesses thrive, but they can also help local businesses thrive internationally. By embedding a video onto your website or social networking page, people from all over the world will have the ability to learn more about your company. And if your boss still isn’t convinced, Scott has created a great video called; “Are you reaching your buyers via online video?” which shows how many different cultures engage with online videos on a DAILY BASIS. This is an offer that’s just too good for any marketer to pass up.
2. Facebook needs a virtual condom
What’s worse than getting a sex video that secretly installs adware onto your computer? Getting a FAKE sex video that installs adware onto your computer. According to Physorg.com, Sophos, a British-based virus fighter, warned Facebook users of a posting entitled “Distracting Beach Babes.” Per usual, the alluring posts were somehow mysteriously forwarded by users’ friends, and once someone clicked on the link, the virus installed adware, a software package that “automatically plays, displays or downloads advertisements.” Sophos believes “hundreds of thousands” of Facebook users received the posts over this past weekend. Apparently, a similar scam happened last week with a fake post entitled, “Sexiest Video Ever.” How will Facebook stop this online virus-spreading madness? By using protection of course.
To stop a virus from spreading, we can either stay abstinent (which I’m sure Facebook users will refuse to do—kids will be kids) or we can do what Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, suggested: set up an early warning system on their network that can let almost 500 million users know about breaking threats as they happen. By sending a simple message warning users of the outbreak, virus attempts will be stopped in their tracks.
Now, that’s what I call a safe and satisfying Facebooking experience.
3. Dear Grammar Abusers,
Where do you get off? Rather than adhering to grammar geniuses like Samuel Johnson, Shrunk and White, and Diana Hacker, you decided to create your own rules, thus unleashing grammar mayhem everywhere from text messages to Facebook posts. Well, no more. The grammar conscious people of this world have realized that although we don’t have the power to stop you completely, we can try and resist the urge to take a giant red pen and edit your asses into submission.
How? Well, Hyperbole and a Half, a blog dedicated to proper punctuation, has developed a few coping mechanisms when it comes to dealing with your comma-misusing, apostrophe-abusing kind. For example, in situations in which one uses a vowel rather than actually typing out an entire word (i.e. “u” instead of “you”), we now imagine that you must be some poor limbless soul with only one finger on each of your hands (which can make typing kinda tricky). To us, this is the only valid reason that you would make such an error. And it’s this disturbing thought that keeps us from working ourselves into a grammar correcting frenzy.
To learn other ways writers can cope with those who ignore the entire concept of capital letters and apostrophes, check out “The Alot is Better Than You at Everything” blog post. Though you won’t get the vindication you long for, you’ll at least feel a little more understood in your effort to save the written word.
Until tomorrow,
Captain Lindsey
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