An app or chrome extension to report typos and grammatical errors in writing copy for products, websites, or advertisements for a small reward.
Categories: Crowdsourcing, bug bounties, software
Skills Needed: Software development (eventually), marketing and/or community building
Background & The Pitch
We will try our best to make you have a happy shopping.
This was printed on the box of a coffee grinder I recently purchased on Amazon.
It’s a bit funny initially, but then bit sad when you think about it. Like many manufacturers selling online, it’s pretty clear that English is not the first language of the company that packaged this. So either they relied on Google Translate, or worse, paid for some translation service that did a sloppy job. They’re doing their best with the tools they have or can afford, and probably have no idea about these errors. That sucks for them.
These happen everywhere: typos in ads, broken sentences in product manuals, websites that don’t flow. Once these are in the wild, there isn’t much reason for customers to seek out and notify businesses. It’s too much work.
But what if there was an incentive for this, and an easy way to report it to the business?
There are many companies focussed on bug bounties and ethical hacking for security vulnerabilities. Why isn’t there something similar for language?
Discover an error? Report it on the app or chrome extension. When the business accepts the correction, you get the bounty. Since copy errors are more abundant than bugs, the amounts could be nominal - $5-$100 range.
It’s not inconceivable that some folks might even start to go hunting for these kinds of mistakes, and earn a little side income. Even better! The world becomes a little bit of a blettter place.
Or at least one that’s easier to read.
Strategy Notes
The idea itself is simple enough, and could take many forms to get going.
You don’t even need an app to start this. If you want to go really basic, you could start this as a Twitter handle. “Found an error? DM us." We’ll tweet at the company and invite them to pay you a reward.” Maybe just gift cards or credits to start so you can skip the payment handling and complexity. Or if you have some technical skills, a basic app wouldn’t be too complicated either.
The big challenge to getting started is that you don’t want to try to boil the ocean. It needs to be focussed.
Bugs bounties or security vulnerabilities are inherently restricted to mobile, web, or desktop apps. Copy errors, on the other hand, can be found anywhere - a box of crackers at the grocery store, a Facebook ad, an Amazon product, instruction manual… you get the idea. So you’ve got to pick a lane on this one to start. To me, a good one seems like business websites.
Websites would work because the problems are going to be consistent, they’re usually easy for the business to fix, and it’s not hard to figure out who to notify (it’s either the owner of the site, or the marketing team). You don’t have to narrow by industry or geography. Everything is already there without signing up or buying a product. Most websites have contact information, or you can find the owner via a WHOIS lookup.
Bug bounties work as a pull strategy - the bounty hunters first find the problem, then the business gets approached to sign up, review it, and pay the bounty. Getting businesses to sign up first doesn’t work because they don’t know that they need it. The same would be true for this idea - it has to start with the hunters. So you have to find them first.
Finding hunters might be challenging. They’re out there, but where? For this to gain momentum, you’ll likely need to tap into a small group of folks that would contribute a decent amount of time to this - it’s a lot harder at the start if it’s just people passively finding typos in their everyday activities. Wikipedians, freelance copywriters/editors/journalists, redditors, or English/Marketing students might be some pools to tap into. Start small, and try to build a mini-community - that’s the engine that really drives Wikipedia’s editors to spend hours a week writing and editing articles. Folks might come for the money, but they’ll stick around for the feeling that they’re a part of a group that is doing some good in the world. Eventually, a few game metrics or leaderboards would also really help engage these spelling-mistake seekers.
Research and Data
Here’s a fun blog article on typos that have cost businesses millions of dollars.
According to one survey, 71% of marketers say that spelling or grammar mistakes are unacceptable in their field. Marketers care about this, and will likely happily pay to find these corrections before their customers (or bosses) notice.
Name Ideas
BounTypo, GrammArmy, Werd… you could pretty much misspell any common word, if you want - and the .com domain is more likely to be available that way, too!
Somebody please StatThis!
Ps. How many typos did you find in this article?