Just like the emails that once promised free money from Bill Gates for participation in a Microsoft email beta test, reposting a Facebook status isn't going to produce money from thin air anymore than forwarding a chain email message would have done in years past. And yet, the same people who are now savvy enough to junk the email forwards and scams into their Deleted Items folder are blindly reposting status messages such as these as if they're the gospel truth.

Urban legends have filled our inboxes for years on end. Before the days of technology, these same stories were idly passed around via chats at the water cooler and over-the-fencepost gossip sessions with fellow neighbors. It's said that the tales tap into a society's dark underbelly by posing as cautionary tales about the dangerous world we live in (AIDS from a gas pump! A hook-handed murderer!), or they simply tap into our deepest hopes and dreams. (You can get rich quick! You just have to forward an email!). Legends like these may change over the years, but they will always be around in some form or another and they won't be disappearing any time soon.

Watch Out, You're Being Spied On!

Another recent message making the rounds warns of something called "Unnamed app," a vicious little bot that supposedly slowlys down Facebook while also spying on your activities. While there is some truth to the fact that Facebook applications have an unworldly amount of access to your personal data, this particular app is not a rogue spybot secretly tracking your moves, it's just your everyday, run-of-the-mill software bug. And Facebook fixed it. But that probably won't stop thousands from "helpfully" passing this message onto their Facebook friends for days (if not weeks and months) to come.

Your Account Will be Deleted Unless...

These viral status messages, brand-new creations about Internet dangers and free money, aren't the only hoaxes to find their way to the social space. Older urban legends have also been re-crafted to now fit the Facebook era. Take, for example, the warning passed around in the early 2000's regarding the "overload" of people signing up for Hotmail accounts. According to this missive, Hotmail was over capacity and Microsoft needed to dump some people from the system. In order to prove you were still an active user, you were asked to forward the email to every Hotmail contact you had so that your account would not be deleted. Essentially a harmless prank, this warning transformed itself over the years, reappearing in various forms that threatened the accounts of Yahoo, then AOL, Friendster, Orkut, Bebo, and MySpace users alike. Today, that message is again being circulated as a Facebook status update. The new lingo? It's not "please forward" anymore - it's "Copy+Paste." Because if you don't, you know, your Facebook account will be deleted. Yikes!

In this case, the fear of losing Facebook access has led many users to repost the warning on their own walls, where it's seen by friends who pick it up and pass it around too. But again, there's no truth to this message either.

An Urban Legend or a Deeper Truth?

While the above hoax speaks greatly to our society's increased reliance on technology, how strong those ties are and how fearful we are of being without them, others play on even deeper emotions. The Facebook story about the $1-at-a-time donations might not be true (side note: the company has set up a Disaster Relief page for those interested in legitimate ways to help), there's a photo of a Haitian cross whose existence is harder to prove or disprove. Circulating via Facebook right now is this photo of a stone crucifix still left standing in the wake of the utter destruction that was the Haitian earthquake. That one's real, right? Well, maybe so, maybe not. Ever since the creation of Photoshop, answering questions like these have gotten much harder. What matters though, is not the photo's veracity (or lack thereof), but the fact that, to some, it seems to hold a deeper meaning about the nature of God - how he's still there even in times like these. For Christians, it's an image of hope in a world of suffering. And by reposting it time and again via Facebook, it's spreading virally around the globe.

It's precisely these emotions - our fears, our hopes, our desires - that urban legends tap into. And while some are more harmless than others, it can be difficult to know the difference between the truth and a false claim, as this above example clearly shows.

Think Before You Post

So what can you do? Although we're no longer deluged by the well-meaning warnings and fables that arrive via our email inboxes, we're still being subjected to their far-out claims. It's just that the medium is different. Once again, it's time to be vigilant. Just because you saw it on Facebook, that doesn't make it true. Just because the message comes via a trusted friend or family member, that doesn't make it worthy of reposting. Take a minute to think about it, use common sense, run a quick Google search if unsure, and then decide if that story is one to pass on.

Going by the numbers, the campaign was a success. Within four days, more than 60,000 people had watched the video. Today, the number of views is over 150,000. But did the hoax actually help the company market their product? Or did it just leave people with a bad taste in their mouth after being taken in by the hoax?

We're Always Wondering: Is it Fake?

When it comes to fake viral videos, an Australian retail company isn't  by any means the first to pull one over on us. More recently, one of the hottest viral videos out there was "Bike Hero," a daring reinterpretation of the video game "Guitar Hero," but played out on the streets using a bike instead of a guitar. The stunt was impressive and elaborate, so the video drew a lot of views. The viewing stats at the time of writing show that this video has been watched over 1.9 million times. Yet it too, was a marketing hoax.

Designed by Droga5, an ad agency, and a production company called Smuggler, "Bike Hero" was just a part of the team's marketing efforts on behalf of their client, Guitar Hero World Tour. The video's credits apparently included a CG artist, a CG supervisor, and an animation supervisor in addition to several visual effect specialists. In other words, it wasn't real.

In fact, several of the biggest viral videos aren't real: popping popcorn using your cell phone? An ad for cell phones. The office rampage? A teaser for a new movie. The Wii Fit underwear girl? Well, that one's a maybe, but the signs don't look good: the boyfriend in the video works as director of interactive media for Tinsley Advertising in Miami, Florida.

Are Hoaxes Good Marketing?

At best, hoaxes end up leaving you disappointed, at worst, angry. Are those actually the types of feelings marketers want you to associate with the products they're selling?  Although clever, fake viral videos may not be the best idea for companies.

When you find out that a video is a hoax put out by a marketing agency, are you turned off? Does your perception of the product change too? Or is half the fun trying to spot the real videos from the fakes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.