Author’s Note: Some editing may apply to the article below. This article was originally 2 hours worth of unedited vitriol, inspired by the inordinate amount of time it takes me to remove spammers from my follower list on Twitter. (I block because I care about the health of the network.) I would like to state for the record that I am ~not~ a consultant and my field of employ does not position me as a social media anything. I am fully employed at a .com company that is none of your business because my opinions here are completely my own and in no way reflect those of my employers past, present or future, as is the case with all my articles.

Listen. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “oh god, another contrarian anti-internet jerk who just doesn’t get it”, right? Well, here’s the problem, assuming there is anything to “get” in the first place, I feel as though I do get it. So let me explain to you in no uncertain terms why I feel that you have to be very picky about how you approach the broad spectrum of things on the internet that have fallen under the somewhat dubious umbrella of “social media” – what follows applies mostly if you are a company or work for a company which wishes to employ this miracle tool to win friends and influence shoppers. Those of you who are largely concerned with keeping up with your friends and picking up some new novel on Amazon are exempt from this lecture and may go on about your business.

Someone, somewhere, right now may have just friended you or followed you or emailed you or called you with the intent to sell their services to you as an expert in social media. It may not have even been a real person, it may have been someone’s automated robot, spitting out update after update linking back to their blog or company website. This person may have been trying to convince you of one of the following things:

• You NEED to be a part of social media in order to make it in business.
• You NEED to be a part of social media to make it on the internet.
• You NEED to have dozens of automated accounts, linking to affiliate programs, so you never have to work another day in your life.
• You NEED the services of a “qualified social media expert” (really? what are the qualifications for that?) just like them to make this happen, because you, poor soul that you are, don’t get it.
• You NEED to have “conversations” with your customers, every last damn one of them, and you can somehow find all of your customers through the internet regardless of your business model or demographic.
• You NEED to be light and human and approachable on this wild, wooly internet, or your customer base will think you’re just a mean old corporate giant and won’t trust you anymore.
• You NEED to make sure that you do your campaigning virally from now on, and harness the power of the crowd.

If you are hearing any or all of the above statements, I want you to take a deep breath, take a good long look at this person telling you these things, and realize that you may be dealing with a blithering asshole, a liar, or an asshole liar. This individual may be feeding you a complete line of bullshit in order to help themselves to your money. This individual may also be intelligent, well-rounded, and respectful of you and your business. It is a VERY difficult line of judgement, and I urge individuals and businesses out to make a name for themselves (on the internet or otherwise) to tread carefully when it comes to the internet, since without self-education and experience it is very easy to get taken in by an enthusiastic pitchman who just wants you to “embrace the new media”.

Lest you think I’m just out to start trouble…

There are many ways in which acknowledging popular social media outlets could benefit a business, and just as many if not more ways that it can harm a business. It shouldn’t be a question of if your company will be participating in the various activities available on the internet, but when, how, and most importantly why.

In an extreme negative example, let us take the “Domino’s YouTube incident” into consideration for a moment. A couple of young employees of a particular Domino’s store took it upon themselves to film themselves playing with food that was intended to be delivered to a customer in a way that was clearly pretty unsanitary or at the very least against guidelines. They posted said video to YouTube, a content delivery service which allows anyone with an account to upload video files to share with as few or as many people as the account holder wishes. Due to the fact that this incident was rather outrageous, the link to that video spread a lot further than those two employees’ friends, and wound up being a huge embarrassment to the entire franchise. This in turn resulted in the President of Domino’s himself recording a response and distributing it through YouTube also. The original, incriminating videos were the kind of mildly gross, slightly shocking, pure-amusement dreck that tends to go popular, and unfortunately none of the major news outlets who covered the story back when it first occurred managed to get the number of views the video managed to receive prior to the suspension of “whiteair2″, the original account the videos were posted on.

Some would argue that if Domino’s had been proactive in their approach to social media in particular, this may not have been “as bad” or may not have happened at all. Yes and no, would be my response to that claim. Would it have been worthwhile for Domino’s to monitor for the presence of its company name on the internet, and be prepared to respond should anything negative start to gain ground? Absolutely, because as demonstrated here, things can occur which get people to talking with one another, and eventually things like this can leave the walled gardens from which they sprung. Everything I’ve heard about public relations suggests that good PR has legs and will generate positive influence that may bring in future customers. Bad PR, however, seems to have a hangar full of high speed jets which can result in misconceptions, smug disdain, and complaints that spread faster and linger for much longer.

Yet this monitoring is by no means exclusive to “social media” outlets such as YouTube or Twitter, and likewise, no amount of canned responses thrown up on YouTube, nor Twitter accounts/posts to mitigate the seemingly endless stream of whiny, self-righteous haters, can stop this sort of thing or even improve the company’s standing with either the internet using people they are supposedly reaching out to or more importantly the greater public. The extremely scripted response from the Domino’s President clocks in (as of today) at 731,695 views, according to the official posting of the video, which is downright pathetic given the amount of mass media attention this story received. However, reposts may also carry views which aren’t counted in this number. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the articles I have read only give passing nods to Domino’s response to the matter, and focus more on the shock-and-awe blitz that the original videos seem to have stirred up to begin with.

What this story has to teach is:

• Not being aware of how you and your company can be portrayed in the public by average citizens using an easily accessible set of tools can be disastrous.
• Trying to mitigate a terrible PR situation by poorly using the tools that seem to have been the “cause” of the problem does not automatically win you the love of those same detractors. Handling the situation quickly and professionally might, if you’re lucky.

Note: A commenter brought up a good point RE: my recap of the Domino’s situation and I clarified my thoughts in a follow-up comment. Scroll down and read if you’re interested. Thank you, Liz, for the opportunity to clarify those points.

So what about my business?

What this has to do with you, and the slick individual who thinks it would be a good idea to sign your company up for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and all these other “popular” sites, is very simple. It starts by asking yourself a very simple question: “Does my company have something tangible to gain by actively interacting with its customer base through one of these outlets?”

These days, the answer to the second question is almost guaranteed to be a partial yes, unless you’re doing something like making custom wagon parts for the Amish, then maybe not so much. Yet before you invest all your money in a fast-talking internet “guru” (which is a word to watch out for, by the way, since most of these would-be rinpoche have dubbed themselves gurus), hire 6 more people just to re-tweet press releases for you, and figure out how to talk about your product on the YouTube even if no one cares, there are a couple more questions you might want to ask yourself, your staff, and your magical social media consultant:

• Why should I be proactively seeking criticism and input from a relatively small portion of my customer base using services like Facebook and Twitter when I can dedicate more resources to a more balanced approach that entails monitoring a larger portion of the internet INCLUDING those sites to create a good cycle of reactive implementation of better features and services?
• Does my company have the ability to put someone, or several people, in “the line of fire” to respond almost instantaneously to any situation that is made aware to the public, knowing that these people must be given the freedom to respond in a largely unscripted manner if they are to be at all effective in coming across as genuine?
• Does my company – or my consultant – understand the difference between marketing, public relations, and reputation management?
  • Does my company – or consultant – understand that these initiatives are related, but are still different and will require different disciplines, approaches, and sometimes people to be successful?
• Does my company know when to draw the line and handle a situation through dealing with the traditional media outlets, understanding that for every customer on the internet, there are several more who will not have access to those broadcasts from us?
• Is my company interested in self-promotion and press releases, or direct customer relations and expanding customer service contact methods?
• What kind of things are being said about my product or service on the internet?
  • What kinds of things are being said about my competitors’ products or services?
  • What kind of things are being said about directly related or easily confused products or services?
  • What kind of things are being said about my entire niche or section of business?
  • What kind of things are being said specifically by people in my demographic for any one or all of these things?
• (And of course the pre-work to all of that previous short list of questions, in case that didn’t scare you enough:) Does my company have demographic information about our business model, niche, or industry as well as a basic understanding of the terms and topics related to that, and an ability to dedicate resources to that research before, during and after any phase of a long-term customer facing campaign on the internet?

If your “social media expert” or “guru” or just plain old consultant cannot help you address any one of the above questions, then they are not doing you a service, but a very distinct disservice. The internet is a fairly complex emotional and social landscape, but so is a television viewing audience, a base of radio listeners, and the readership of a magazine or newspaper. The key factor here is that you are always dealing with answering the question of “How does my business interact with the public?” If you let yourself get blinded by cheap tactics under the guise of “better SEO” or “getting with the times” or some kind of misguided free love approach to business on the internet that you have no plans of actually embracing, then you are going to be about as effective on a site like Twitter as a man wearing a sandwich board in the subway screaming about the end times and handing out leaflets to everyone who dares get within five feet of him. Sure, being in the subway is great exposure, and he’s yelling so everyone can hear him, he’s definitely getting to a lot of people, and he’s delivering his leaflets of content to really spread the word around. The trouble is, they all thing he’s annoying, insane, or both, and they’re probably right. It’s a terrible way to do business either out on the street or through channels like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

Summary:

• Think before you act.
• Never abandon or detract from your bottom line for what could be a trend, or go against your core business model.
• Do not cave to the pressure to be on Twitter simply because you’re paying someone to tell you that it’s a good idea. And fire that guy who can’t give you at least one good reason why it is genuinely good for your business.
• Be aware that the internet can impact your PR, but handle the situation according to what is right for your business, not according to the media used for delivery. (Would you run a counter local Fox news investigation if a local Fox news investigation caused you a PR flap? Probably not.)

Thanks, and happy interneting!

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Admittedly, I’m an Internet n00b (does anyone even say that anymore?) Sure, I was chatting away with the best of ‘em on AOL in 1995, but it’s only within the last year (since I began work at an internet marketing company) that I’ve thought to embrace any browser other than Internet Explorer, any email client other than hotmail. I shudder to think that just a year ago, good ol’ IE held my hand while I traipsed naively through the interwebs, but, since then I feel I’ve taken strides, leaps, cross-country flights in the right direction; and today I’m proud to say that, Internet junkie or not, I am a bit of a Firefox whore.

I’m not web-developer. I can’t code (yet). I dabble in SEO but have barely scratched the surface. No, I’m just your average Internet user, and below is a list of the apps I like. Applications come and go, and I’ll admit, I try more than my fair-share. But, some add-ons stand their ground and prove useful and pleasant day in and day out– even, or perhaps especially, for the Internet n00b like me.

Interclue

Mouse over a link and, in the top right corner of the term an icon indicating the location appears. Wikipedia shows up as a small W, Newsweek as a red box with a white N, and so on. Mouse over this icon, and a window pops up where the contents of the link is displayed like its own separate page. It’s not just a preview. Most of the time the entire contents of the page will be given; a scroll bar down the right side if necessary.

There are actually several link-preview applications on Firefox, but I’ve found Interclue to be the least intrusive. Many pop-up with an unintentional mouse-over and stay-up, blocking half the page and contributing to my overall level of irritation (one that sits quietly in the background of my average workday.)

Cooliris

I love this photo and video viewer. Cooliris turns your browser into a 3-D screen for viewing photos, images and videos. From browsing a friend’s Facebook album, to searching for videos on you-tube, Cooliris is convenient, easy and fun to use. It also features a “discover” section, where images and videos of the latest news, sports, art and entertainment are posted. Click on the image and you’ll be taken directly to its source. Only one complaint: a right mouse-click won’t bring up the option to save the photo.

Twitterbar

Post to directly to Twitter from your address bar. Your 140 characters count down as you type, and a clicking a conveniently placed green arrow signifies you’re ready to post. The login window pops up to confirm so you don’t end up posting random urls every time you hit enter. Quick and easy!

Colorful Tabs

Simple and pretty. Colorful tabs makes each tab you bring up a different color. Nothing fancy, but a pleasant add-on that might help you organize your tabs while browsing.

Better Gmail 2

Better Gmail 2 is a fairly straightforward enhancement of the web-based mail client of the same name. The application offers new skins (my favorite is the Gmail redesign: complete redesign), file attachment icons and hierarchical labels.

So there you have it, the beloved apps of an internet newbie.

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Looks like I had spoken too soon about URLtea being back in it to win it.

An astute commenter on my previous “URLTea Dead” post just tipped me off to the site being dead, again.

Below is the text I got when visting the main site.

Site Temporarily Unavailable
We apologize for the inconvenience. Please contact the webmaster/ tech support immediately to have them rectify this.

error id: “bad_httpd_conf”

Of course no word from them using Twitter. Although funnily enough when I went to check their twitter profile to confirm…

Another Twitter outage. Nothing new. Still, at least with the screen (as shown in the image above) I was given upon hitting the site, I was immediately aware of the issue, and was given some kind of assumed reassurance that the Twitter team would be working to repair the issue. URLTea’s “error page”? Not so much.

Once again I wish to invite the URLtea operators to touch base with their users, and let us know about outages, and the future of URLtea. With a growing number of URL-shortening services out there, it becomes less and less apparent why I or anyone else should use URLtea. If you guys are interested in building a service, or a company, which people feel comfortable sticking with and recommending, it is in your best interests to communicate once in a while.

Twitter is notorious for outages at this point, but they’re discussing it publicly and making it clear that they are working to fix these issues. Dreamhost has issues regularly, which they report to customers via RSS and other direct-to-customer methods (i.e. not just posting it up on the site and assuming people will go there to read). Rackspace has blown up a couple times, too, and they sent out a slew of direct-to-customer emails. The reason these companies still get the attention that they do is because they respond to these incidents.

So what’s the scoop, URLtea?

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Well, I’m just back from the first ever NH Media Makers get together. What a terrific idea, and what a great turn out. I honestly didn’t know what to expect, both in people or content, despite the post at the actual NH Media Makers site detailing who would be there and what to expect!

We had all types of people, with different disciplines, but the major unifying factor was our passion for all things internet. Which is extremely refreshing as a majority of people I’ve met here in New Hampshire have not been the slightest bit interested in the internet or tech in general. It was like a high school AV meeting with a million times more class.

After adamantly sucking down as much coffee as possible, I tuned in to each attendee’s introduction and background. Everybody had a great story to tell and a variety of really terrific projects they were involved in too. I don’t think a single person there had just one thing they were working on, interested in, or knew about. There was no shortage of great ideas, and everybody seemed tremendously passionate about their field of interest.

We had photographers, videographers, writers, entrepreneurs, search engine marketers, programmers, culture geeks, and often times most people were several of those things if not all of them! Had I been taking notes I’d have a lot more details about each person. Everybody I met was just terrific. There was a definite buzz in the air and I could tell a lot of really valuable connections were made. Separately we’ve got a ton of super ideas and talents, together we could really turn this area into a hub of internet and cultural activity.

Couple of points I want to shout out to any local readers:

• One of the attendees is a film maker out in Manchester who will be looking for extras interested in dying. :)
• Another wants to get interest up in late night monster movie showings in the area, preferably big screen. Who knows about theater in the area?
• We’ve got film folks who might want extras, guest writers, feedback, or musical contributions/suggestions.
• There are authors chomping at the bit for publishing tips or inspiration in general.
• There’s me, looking for blog authors and people interested in helping my wacky friends commit some of their film ideas to the web.
• There’s a niche marketer looking for ideas and feedback on how to incorporate things like video and blogs into his repertoire to strengthen his position as the top in his field(s).

And so much more. I’m hoping others took better notes. There will be a mailing list, and notes and attendee URLs will be posted over at the NH Media Makers site, so stay tuned. We’ll also have some pictures and video courtesy of a few folks who were there. (Phil, John, and Roger if I remember correctly.) There will be more of these in the future, so if you missed the first one, fret not, you will have a chance to join in the fun!

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This guy is AWESOME! Amy might not agree (and my apologies for ganking your series title for this) but I have to say that this is some of the most amusing and amazing nerd rap I’ve heard in a while. Why is it nerd rap? Well, watch for yourself.

Ignoring his awkward posing, this is by far the best lyrical treatment I could think of to describe the role of design in SEO. Everything he puts forth here is exactly correct, from clear navigation, use of standards, browser testing, and a clear call to action.

The SEO Rapper has it right, and even though you may feel like this is perhaps in the same league as the anti-drug rapping of the 80s-90s (yo yo, kids don’t do drugs, stay in schoo’, be respec-ful of your parents, ’cause no one likes a fool!), those who are new to the whole “SEO” thing might want to pay attention. For those who have had an education on the subject already, you’ll definitely get a kick out of this approach to the core concepts of search marketing.

Props to antifuchs in #ectomo for pointing this out to me.

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Case in point: People getting all up in arms about an Absolut print ad campaign depicting a large chunk of the southwest United States as being part of Mexico “In an Absolut World”.

Give me a break, people. What are you offended by, exactly? History? The fact of the matter is, the land depicted in the ad’s map did belong to Mexico at one point. Is the serious offense in suggesting that the United States’ fulfillment of Manifest Destiny is somehow fallible? Heaven forbid anyone challenge the conquest of the central portion of North America.

I understand people having immigration issues, to a point. Yet to get bent out of shape over a vodka company implying that it might be ideal if the borders had never changed? Honestly. Am I the only one who sees it that way? That it’s not suggesting Mexico “retake” that area, it’s not suggesting that Mexicans should “overrun” the southwest, or that illegal immigration is a good idea.

It was an ad, run in Mexico, for booze, that used a historical reference to highlight Mexico’s once grand territory in order to associate a feeling of pride in one’s country with their product. Ultimately, it’s highly unlikely that their goal was to stir up a world of shit for themselves. It was to sell vodka to more Mexicans. Instead what they’ve got is a smaller marketing department and threats of boycott.

I find the the outrage dredged up by the idea of a company wanting to push more product pretty offensive. The more anger is expressed over that, and the more lines are drawn between immigration issues and this ad, the more nasty arguments and anti-Mexican sentiment are going to rise. I understand the concept of maintaining solid borders, of national programs being available only to legitimate citizens (to an extent). What I don’t understand and absolutely don’t like is people disparaging an entire country full of people by taking a tongue-in-cheek advertisement by a company who is based out of an entirely different country (Sweden, according to the giant PDF with tiny print they put out) and blowing the intended meaning way out of proportion. It shows a lack of rationality and serves as another vocal demonstration of how reactionary, intolerant, and anti-intellectual Americans have managed to portray themselves as.

Tonight, I’m gonna buy a vodka tonic… with Absolut in it. What are you going to do?

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Ordinarily, I get really excited when there’s mail sitting in my inbox saying that I’ve gotten a comment! While a lot of times it’s just an approval request for some spammer than actually bypassed Akismet, there are the periodic genuine comments which are always a joy. (And I thank you, commenters, for taking the time to talk back.)

Today however I got a rather nasty surprise. It was spam of the worst sort, it was a comment that had gone through because it actually followed the rules, but was clearly self-promotional dreck.

I don’t mind people being self promotional in the comments, to a point. The line in the sand, however, is obvious marketese and insincerity. The comment, copied below for your perusal, demonstrates everything I hate about people trying to promote themselves “naturally” on the internet. I took the liberty of removing the name of the site and all links from the comment, because quite frankly I don’t want to give these people or this person any extra exposure that they clearly don’t deserve for pushing my buttons.

—begin comment text—
[redacted] is a platform that uses the Internet to deliver high quality radio and video programming. Our demographic reaches an unlimited resource in a worldwide venue. The benefit to artists and advertisers is far reaching, but the most important product is our quality radio broadcast. What we deliver to the audience is what matters the most at [redacted] If you have not had a chance to hear a show, we encourage you to check us out. And always remember… YOU ROCK!
—end comment text—

This offending comment was left on Every Time You Blare Nickelback, God Smites an 80s Rocker.

You want to plug your website? Yourself? Something you like? Go for it. You can even do it in the comments. But for the love of all that’s good and right in this world, do yourself a favor and spare me and my readers the Patented Marketroid Output.

If the original commenter is indeed a human being and not a robot, I would love to have an open dialogue with you about how you can improve your self-promotion tactics so you don’t end up being banned, deleted, or belittled wherever you go. Truthfully though? You only have to remember one word: genuine. If your comments and your promotion doesn’t sound or feel genuine no one’s going to take you seriously, least of all someone who deals with marketing speak every day. Next time you want to comment here, please, just be yourself and not your company line.

Thank you!

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Tay Zonday’s managed to snag an endorsement deal. I’m sure you’ve all heard about it already. From the heartlands of Ectomo to Wired’s hipster hovel blog The Underwire and beyond, it’s being talked about non-stop.

Chocolate Rain, that agitatingly infectious little ditty from a little while back, caught the attention of the Dr. Pepper marketing staff and they decided the way to go would be a remix. The 25-going-on-14 Adam Nyerere Bahner, aka Tay Zonday, managed to snag himself a tidy marketing deal with the song that had everyone mezmerised for a good few weeks several months back. I think it’s foolish for a major brand to jump on the Chocolate Rain meme now. It’s well past its prime at this point, surely. Based on my own observations, it would seem that wide-spread things like this have a tendency to start small, flare up within a community, die out a little, spread to a series of other communities, and then burst into the general public for a brief flare of upwards of a month, then slowly die out. Think of it like the female sexual cycle. There are often spikes of intense “oh god oh god” followed by almost a total reset bordering on disinterest. Eventually there’s the actual orgasm itself, a plateau of enjoyment, after which it cools down to nothing again in relatively short order. Yes, further peaks can be coaxed out after the initial plateau, but it’s not easy and not every meme is capable of such repeated overtures.

At any rate, while I’m not much of a fan of the thinly veiled viral marketing of a carbonated beverage that is Cherry Chocolate Rain, I did get the opportunity to catch another tune by Tay Zonday that I actually enjoyed. See below and weigh in your thoughts on memes, marketing, and how goofy this kid is.

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I was poking around in my google mail, when the news crawl, ticker, whatever you want to call it, came across with the blurb mentioned here. It sounded relatively interesting, so I clicked. Go ahead, check it out. I’ll wait.

http://www.forbes.com/video/?video=fvn/forbesonfilm/ve_fof111706?partner=rss

As those of you who followed that link can see, I sat through no less than a minute and a half of advertising and financial news data that had absolutely nothing to do with the article I was supposed to be seeing. For those of you who didn’t visit that link, allow me to provide a breakdown.

First 10 seconds: Summary of upcoming content. No mention of the article shown in the above link.
Next 30 seconds: Samsung commercial.
Next 100 seconds: Various financial news, again, no mention of the linked article.
Next 30 seconds: The EXACT SAME Samsung ad.
Next 20 seconds: Another ad.

Then and only they did get they get to the “point” i.e. the piece about Jack Black. It was apparently about the upcoming Tenacious D movie, but by the time I got to that point, I was so irritated by the barrage of un-asked for information I no longer had any interest in the information that actually related to the link that brought me there.

Color me stupid, but I was under the impression that have the attraction to internet media had to do with the lack of bullshit and filler one typically associates with the more “traditional” forms of media. Television, for example, is stuck with static streaming, and basically have to bend the way their revenue source wants them to bend. Internet content is a bit more fluid in nature. They could rip that down, promote it, or move it however they see fit at any time. I could understand running an ad before the main content, and even another one after, but this was ridiculous.

To get people to read this article here, for example, I wouldn’t draw people in using links for Viagra or casinos, feed them this article, then say “oh by the way, Viagra is great if you’re at a casino”. That would be a shitty thing to do. There’s a lot of internet, and not all that much time. Incidentally, based off of this ill behavior on the part of Forbes, I’m half-tempted to go marketing this article with Viagra and casinos, since I’ve now mentioned them. Or maybe a slightly less competative term, like maybe “emo” or “pony midget porn”.

Hey, why not? If the big dogs can use deceptive content presentation and linking tactics to get people to watch their advertising, why can’t I? Afterall, the promise of relevant content is what makes MySpace so popular, isn’t it? “Hey look my friend from high school, hey look, cursors and diplomas and lots of people to date through x service… wait, where’s that friend of mine again?”
Time to sign me up for some contextual advertising… post haste. Jerks.

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We had “greek day” here at the office. Several people brought in greek dishes. DEEEEEE-lish. Ian makes fan-freaking-tastic moussaka.
So I read this article here: http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=324
And I was inspired to read up on the “Lonelygirl15″ phenomena. I’d heard of it, but figured it was just some marketing tripe and ignored it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonelygirl15

They reference the Temple of Hathor in Denderah as part of the plot of this vBlog story series.
So I looked into that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dendera_light_001.jpg

There’s speculation that this relief in the temple implies that they had electricity.
Then I thought, well that is a snake in there, what if they had electric eel jars? Are electric eels capable of producing visible electric shocks?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_eel

Well then I noticed that those are native to South American and I realized that without accepting the theory of world travel in early history that my speculation wouldn’t fly.
But in Africa they have electric catfish! Ah-ha!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_catfish

There’s also the battery jars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery

And of course, my favorite part about exploring the Baghdad Battery… the related Mythbusters episode!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%28season_2%29#Baghdad_Battery

I’d provide a YouTube reference but it’s blocked here at work.

Speaking of work, time to get back to work!

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