Every weekday, PR Daily associate editor Alan Pearcy highlights the day’s most compelling stories and amusing marginalia on the Web in this, #TheDailySpin.

So maybe NASA doesn’t follow the Mayan calendar. Someone at the organization should still double check the accuracy of its own dates. Perhaps something with kittens on it or that comical Dilbert. Regardless, CNET.com says the space agency may have jumped the gun Wednesday when it blasted off a video on YouTube titled, “Why the World Didn’t End Yesterday,” clearly meant for release on Dec. 22, the day after the Mayans’ supposed winter solstice doomsday.



Similar to the ways they piggybacked on 12/12/12, brands seem intent on riding out this whole Mayan apocalypse thing. For instance, in a series of fake ads for Durex, designer Daniel James Evans created a few end of the word adverts laced with sexual innuendo that urge consumers to “Go out with a bang.”

As for more on Wednesday’s big calendric event, mental_floss celebrated 12/12/12 with a list (among others) of 12 of the greatest sentences ever found on Wikipedia.

Thankfully, Wikipedia editors didn’t heed Rene Shimada Siegel’s advice and cut any of the passages from the site before we read them. In a report from Inc., Siegel builds a case for brevity, whether you’re writing for the Web or leaving a voicemail.

You should also cut any of these overused buzzwords from your daily prose. According to Digiday, they drive brands and their managers nuts.

Brevity is also a smart practice when crafting headlines. Roger C. Parker with the Content Marketing Institute provides a 10-point checklist to help guide writers and editors on producing the best titles.

Speaking of lists, let’s power through the rest of this week with BuzzFeed’s selection of the “30 most important cats of 2012”—after all, looking at cute animal picture increase productivity.

Meanwhile, Advertising Age has listed the year’s top viral ad campaigns.

Sadly, YouTube’s most popular video ever proved deadly for one man in England. According to Time, the man suffered a heart attack and died after dancing to Psy’s “Gangnam Style” at an office holiday party.

RELATED: 9 stupid things to avoid doing at your holiday office party

Popular culture’s obsession with that song still doesn’t eclipse PR pros’ obsession with caffeine. Let’s hope the latter fixation bodes well for illustrator and author Ricardo Cortés, whose new picture-book, “A Secret History of Coffee, Coca & Cola,” serves as a follow-up to his modern classic, “Go the F*** to Sleep.” The new book traces the shared histories of coffee, the coca leaf and kola nut, Coca-Cola, caffeine, and cocaine. If only Samuel L. Jackson narrates this one, too.

The history of the cassette tape was recently chronicled to mark its 50th anniversary. As tribute, CBS News reports Ithaca Audio created this fittingly named video "The Mixtape.” Watch.

RELATED: 21 signs you grew up in the ’90s

Perhaps less fitting—you be the judge—PolitiFact named Mitt Romney’s Jeep ad its “Lie of the Year.” The site’s readers, on the other hand, disagreed. They picked talk radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh as the biggest fibber for his comment about Obamacare being "the largest tax increase in the history of the world."

Not to be left out on all the end of the year reviews, Thought Catalog provides its selection of the most ridiculous Huffington Post stories from 2012.

Talk about ridiculous. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the average monthly pay of a Facebook intern—$5,602—equates to a base salary of approximately $67,000. That’s almost $25,000 more than the average U.S. citizen makes in a year.

Is there something you think we should include in our next edition of #TheDailySpin? Tweet me @iquotesometimes with your suggestions. Thanks in advance.

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