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Todd, you know where I stand on this. I don't understand what the fuss is all about.

The "news release" has long been limited by its one-size-fits-all nature. It's text on a page, and sequential.

The whole point of a "new media" release is to provide the various components separately, such that the end users can quickly cobble the parts they need, and discard the rest. The standardization will come through the interface that allows the journalists to organize (or ignore) the elements on the menu. Through a standardized tagging nomenclature, there would be a variety of possible interfaces, all pulling and sorting the content through RSS.

To say "why not bypass through blogging" misses the issue of usability from the journalists' perspective. Each blog page, though hyperlinked, is still a "one-form-fits-all" presentation. Blogs in and of themselves do not provide the flexibility of a true "New Media Release."

As a recent former newsie, I have a different insight into how these tools would really be used, and what specific usability obstacles you have to overcome to generate a real service to the journalist.

That being said, I am using Wordpress right now as an engine for an online newsroom. (up at http://redcrossok.wordpress.com for now.) Given the brief nature of disaster relief, there's no real time to train up an entire media market into the virtues of a SMR. But give it some space to breathe. Once the reporters figure out how much time they can save with pre-sorted content, the industry will demand it.

I am continually amazed and so grateful that so many PR-Squared readers are so friggin' smart and articulate.

THANK YOU, Ike, for your crisp, sane analysis. Bravo!!

Just read Phil's post. I haven't said "he took my answer" since elementary school, so I'll just stick with...Wow. Bravo. Amen.

Great minds think alike, I s'pose. *8-)

And to see that Stowe played the "you just don't get it" card again...

He must have 'em coming out of his sleeve.

Read Stowe's post again... He's not reacting to my post so much as reacting to a reaction to my post (which I've reacted to).

Woah... That sentence gave me a headache...

It is so fun to be snarky, and it is good for traffic... but unfortunately for all sides of a discussion the snarkiness can get in the way of listening to each other (and thus understanding each other).

I have run PR for companies, and I have been a journalist. And now-a-days I am a snarky blogger :-) So to some degree anyway I can see both sides of this debate.

The part of Stowe and company's complaint the rings true for me is that the press release is a shallow substitute for engaging in a conversation.

The part that makes sense about Phil's observations is that, with or without a conversation, there needs to be a mechanism for communicating information about anything being announced.

Here is my favorite latest example of solving the latter point:

http://www.apple.com/iphone

Did Apple need a press release to tell us all about the iphone? Would it have been effective? Did they need to blog about it? Would that have been effective? No to both.

What they needed was an in-depth multi-media website that talked about every aspect of their new product. That way customers, bloggers, and the press would all have a reliable resource to go to in trying to get answers about the new device.

So to restate the problem, why have a PRESS release? As a company, why not talk to EVERYONE -- customers, bloggers, press -- with the same voice? Why not make this voice a website that has as much depth as the announcement justifies? Then have a number of different channels for talking to customers, bloggers, and press about the announcement so that there can be clarifications, corrections, answers to unforseen questions, etc.

Points taken, Ted, but please do keep in mind that not every company has the brand equity of Apple, i.e., an "official organ" of Corporate America (the major newswires) at least levels the playing field a bit. In other words, the SMR can essentially be a microsite hosted by the wire services (broader exposure), with microchunky databits that anyone can use (or not) as they see fit.

Thus, the "PRESS" release - as imagined by SMR advocates - is intended to fulfill the need of ALL audiences - be they bloggers, journos or laypeople. It also meets the needs of COMPANIES - to be heard by as broad a swath of constituents (AUDIENCES! There, I said it!) as possible, in an official way.

Plenty has been written about these concepts, of course. Just re-iteratin'.

I agree with Ted on this one. While the social press release is an improvement on the shallow, vapid and useless releases we (the customer) have come to expect from the PR industry, we'd rather just have a conversation. In a product release, the press is simple a middle man. If the conversation is direct with the people, the press is not needed, or needed only to direct people to where the conversation is happening.

Ted Shelton's main point though is the correct one, and one that I have been trying to propagate for a very very long time. Patricia Seybold has the quote I have been trotting out around this most frequently for the past 8 or so years, from an article in Business 2.0 - which I will paraphrase for you since I can't connect to the site at the moment - "Companies need to take responsibility for distributing all the information that someone needs to purchase and enjoy their products or services."

All too often, companies come up short on this effort. While this is in part due to their attempts to fit it all into an outward looking taxonomy, it is mostly due to trying to control the information they don't want everyone to see - like the 0.5% of products that their offering is not compatible with. This is a deeper subject for another day however, and the focus of a book I have been working on called The Communications Strategy.

On a separate note, I have a beef with calling this the 'personsnameMEME' - that is playing right into link baiting and giving way too much spotlight as a reward. I feel that including a person's name in a specific controversy they create is the early makings of a standard practice that will encourage more people to stir things up on issues with which they are not fully familiar. Perhaps I am alone in this perspective, but I am curious as to what other's think about this. If I were to go and start lobbing accustaions at the Linux community, should the resulting conversations be called the 'chrismeme'? Or should it perhaps be focused on the subject of the conversation?

I can't disagree with a word you've said, Chris - including the lame "stowememe" idea. ;)

(It's just that he has a distinctive name; if it was more generic it likely wouldn't have occurred to me.)

As for the other comment by "scientaestubique" - can't the SMR serve as both a channel TO conversation as well as a resource for others to START NEW conversations? i.e., by providing content (vid, pix, whatever) that others can use to their own ends?

Todd - no doubt it could, the question is whether it will, or if another approach may be more direct.

Sometimes the best way to start a conversation is to say hello and introduce yourself.

No doubt, BUT, then there is the SCALABILITY issue. The typical company does not have the bandwidth to monitor and respond (much less proactively reach out to) a quajillion bloggers.

This is not a small issue.

Ironically, the "conversation" seems to be lagging on Stowe's rebuttal of Phil - there are no comments shown. (I know there's at least one submitted b/c I did so almost 24 hours ago.)

Perhaps he is on a plane or something, but for somebody so adamantly railing about "getting" social media, this seems to be an unacceptable lag.

Blogs should be a part of standard customer service, with dedicated staff to read and respond to queries.

I understand your point, but listening to your customers and communicating with them may just save you a fortune in focus groups, PR scandals and repeat queries on the same issues.

Thought you'd be interested to know that last week I had a conversation about the SMR with a member of one of the audiences we're trying to reach - the executive news editor/multimedia at The Sun here in Baltimore. He wasn't asking "what is it?" He already knows about the SMR. Instead, we were talking about its value, and he is a proponent. Details of the discussion are on our blog, linked from http://www.sawmillmarketing.com