The world of comic books is lousy with reboots these days. The New 52 initiative over at DC is probably the highest-profile example (of the titles I’ve read so far, the Aquaman relaunch is my favorite; even Koothrappali won’t be able to say “Aquaman sucks” anymore), but it’s far from the only one.

Over at Marvel, one of the newest reboot examples is Fantastic Four: Season One, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s classic by updating the team’s origin tale. It’s received mixed reviews: USA Today called it outstanding, while IGN rated it mediocre.

I’m not here to review the book, though. Instead, I’m here to review the one panel you see above.

Back in 1962, when the FF first encountered cosmic rays, news about their powers was spread by television, radio and newspapers. In Season One, news travels a lot faster: For example, Johnny Storm is the top-trending topic on Twitter and has his own website.

Except he doesn’t.

I mean, he does if you read the panel above. But just try and go to the site he names. No, seriously. Try. I’ll wait.

See?

Is it really that difficult, people?

How many writers and editors and marketers read that book and saw that panel? And you mean to tell me that no one at Marvel thought to register that domain before I did?

And they ought to be damn happy I did, by the way. Imagine if they similarly ignored a domain that was registered to a porn site — which is not at all out of the realm of possibility given the domain in question.

Worse yet, no Marvel marketer had the forethought not only to register the site, but to set up a Twitter account for Johnny Storm? For goodness sake, you’re saying he’s the top-trending topic on Twitter — and you’re not even going to get an intern to do some tweeting for him so you can add an actual social media dimension to the story you’re telling?

This seems to me to be a gigantic missed opportunity on Marvel’s part. In the Venn diagram of comic book fans and social media users, the overlap of those two circles is pretty significant. To be talking about social media components in one of your A-list releases of the year and not follow through by reflecting those components in the real world is a pretty big mistake.

But I get it: Marvel publishes dozens of titles each week. Even with their massive marketing resources, they probably don’t have the time to dot every I and cross every T, much less create a full-on social media initiative. Fine. At the very least, then, spend the six bucks it requires to register the domain and redirect it to the Fantastic Four page of the Marvel Universe Wiki.

Epic fail. ‘Nuff said.

Takeaway for marketers: If you’re going to use a fictional web address in some piece of published material, make sure you own that domain. Then actually do something with it. Otherwise, what’s the point?

The other day, Ragan’s PR Daily posted a list of 11 things that annoy journalists and bloggers. The list prompted a few thoughts, since I’ve been on both sides of the pitch for a long, long time. Here we go:

1. Blasting mass emails. Yeah, I totally get it. It’s not nearly the preferred method of communication, and certainly not the way you want to manage communications throughout the entire life cycle. But, as a first step to see who out there is interested, it can be of some use (if used, though, the specific language in the email is absolutely crucial).

2. Sending the same Twitter @ reply to 30 people. That just sucks. Conversation should not be saying the same thing over and over and over and …

3. Mailing big press kits. Anyone doing this anymore is missing the boat. Save that expense for a snappy media drop. Press kits? Create an attractive postcard that points to an online press room and give them what they need online.

4. “Just following up.” This is why I have caller ID.

5. Leaving phone messages. As long as you keep them short and to the point, what’s the problem?

6. Adding them to your newsletter. Not only is it annoying, it’s illegal. CAN-SPAM, people. Standards!

7. Giving them packed itineraries. Yep. Respect people’s time.

8. Booking press trips with 20 people. Yep. Respect people’s professionalism.

9. “Friending” them on Facebook. That’s an interesting one. I don’t think it’s necessary to know someone’s kids’ names and birthdays in order to friend them, and I think Ragan is being extremely conservative in this respect. I agree that the LinkedIn request is often more appropriate, but a Facebook connection is entirely dependent on the specific relationship. If it sorta feels right, then go for it; if it sorta feels wrong, then don’t push it.

10. Profile Pitches. Good point.

11. Send off-topic pitches. Yeah, that’s the downside of 1 above. It’s also the downside of working with a media database that’s woefully out of date. Or any media database for that matter: I’ve experienced multiple instances of running Cision searches for NY-area bloggers and winding up with a blogger in California (despite all search result evidence to the contrary). However, I’ve also used that California blogger’s annoyance as an opportunity to have a conversation and bring that person into my circle of contacts for the future, when something California-relevant does come along.

As is so often the case when it comes to these sorts of things, there are no hard-and-fast rules, but there are general guidelines. Observe them, but don’t be afraid to make the appropriate exception when it seems right.

Maximus Jobs is a small company in Ohio that matches up employers and job-seekers. I did a bit of work for them some time ago, and worked with someone else to submit a proposal to handle their online advertising.

I seldom talk about specific clients in this blog, but I can’t help myself this time because it’s such a pitch-perfect example of something I’ve been talking about forever–that even though everyone thinks they can write because, well, everyone does write to some degree or another, that does not at all mean that everyone can be a professional copywriter.

It’s pretty much the same point that I ranted about back in February with regard to Constant Contact and email marketing.

Anyway, so Maximus wanted to handle their own advertising, which included ads on Facebook. They felt it wasn’t worth hiring a professional to write online ads and manage their online communications for them.

So the other day, I see the post you see above on the Maximus Facebook page. Bravo, Sue Loparo.

Look, if you’re going to handle your own advertising, at the very least make sure all the words are spelled correctly, okay?

Sue’s post speaks to a far greater issue: How many other people saw the Maximus ad and said, “these guys do not have their act together, why would I even consider getting involved with them?” How much damage was done to their company as the result of a shabby Facebook ad?

I’m sure somewhere in the Maximus office, someone is asking, “Why aren’t our Facebook ads doing better than they are?” It’s probably the same person who wrote the ad.

Which is precisely why it’s sometimes best to leave online marketing and communications to the online marketing and communications professionals.

Just sayin’.

It’s gotta suck sometimes being one of the top social media gurus on the planet.

I mean, sure, your Twitter feed gets a coupla hundred thousand followers. You get to do keynote speeches at big conferences. Your book gets ranked in the top 100 of Internet Marketing books on Amazon.

Ah, yes. The books.

I got an email the other day from Amazon telling me all about Chris’ new book: Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything. On the one hand, I respect anyone who manages to crank out a book and make a decent buck doing so. On the other hand, I really feel sorry for Chris on this one.

I can only imagine how it all went down. Step one: Google+ debuts. Step two: There’s all sorts of excitement about Google+. Step three: The book deal is made. Step four: The book is written. Step five: The book gets published.

Somewhere between steps four and five, though, something went askew. What, you ask? Well, check out these posts, for example:

Why Google+ Failed (miserably), How to Use Idiotic Facebook Addictions to Grow Your Business, & Did They Lie To You About Traffic!?

A Eulogy for Google Plus

Google+ Pages Officially a Failure (So Far)

Google Engineer Calls Google Plus a ‘Complete Failure’; 5 Reasons We Agree

Well, you get the idea.

So where does this leave Chris? I have no idea; my guess, though, is that it’s either hoping Google+ turns around so he’s proven correct (not likely), wishing he’d never written the book in the first place (maybe) or hoping the next big thing comes along and people forget about Google+ and his book (most likely).

(Of course, not having read the book, maybe it’s a screed about how the failure of Google+ changes everything. If so, ignore everything you’ve just read in this post.)

I do think it’s all a good example of a general tendency toward hyper-accelerated expertise these days. Anytime something slightly significant happens in the world of digital communications, it takes about 12 seconds for there to be dozens upon dozens of blog posts analyzing why that slightly significant something will be the complete game-changer everyone’s been waiting for. After 37 seconds or so, there are probably book deals being discussed.

My advice: Calm down. Let the slightly significant something be absorbed by both the marketplace and the marketplace of ideas. THen step back and take a look and see if it’s worth all that and a bag of chips.

Takeaway for marketers: Sometimes being the best is better than being the first.

Yes, it’s the time of year. The blinding displays of Christmas lights. The relentless parade of holiday movies. The return of Dominick the donkey.

And all my reflexes want to do is scream, “Bah, humbug!” People keep asking me why. Here are some answers:

1. Creeping Christmasism: I’ve been seeing Christmas items in stores since September. This is not okay. The earlier I see them, the stronger my anti-Christmas-as-marketing-machine reaction tends to be, and the longer it takes to get over that reaction. In another couple of years, I expect it’ll take till Valentine’s Day.

2. Relentless Hard-Sell: This is not my first time to the rodeo. I’ve spent a lot of years having people try and sell me stuff, not just at Christmastime but all the time. There comes a point where you just want to scream, “STFU and leave me alone, if I wanna buy something I will, now get out of my way!” It’s not exactly “get off my lawn,” but it’s in the ballpark, I suppose. I guess that’s part of why we get a little crankier as we get older: We feel relentlessly hounded by irrelevant jackasses.

3. Unreasonable Expectations: No one I know ever gave or received a Lexus with a bow on it for Christmas, and I know quite a few people with the wherewithal to pull it off. So just stop.

4. The Ugliest Side of Human Nature: Rioting over a $2 waffle maker. Pepper spray and looting. When did Black Friday start to look like the Rodney King riots?

5. General Rudeness: One would think that a holiday defined by “joy” and “giving” and “spirit” would bring out the best in most people. Not even close. Somehow common courtesy seems to fly out the window whether it’s on the road or in the mall. Hey, people: We all live in one giant community — this isn’t all about you, you and only you.

There, I got that out of my system. But I gotta say: Each year, it gets tougher and tougher to get into the Christmas spirit. When Darlene Love is no longer singing “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” on Letterman, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.