Social Media Release Moving Forward Again
June 20th, 2007 by Chris Heuer
I just got off the phone with Shannon Whitley from PRX Builder and I am very happy to report that he is taking the lead in moving the technical standard for the Microformat forward. As a result, he is going to be reaching out to many of you who have expressed interest in becoming involved - if you are not yet a member of the New Media Release Mailing List on Google, please join in there now and let us know if you are interesting in lending a helping hand, or share your thoughts here.
Many of the leading thinkers on the release, including myself, are surprised at the very limited pick up this idea has received so far. I was particularly surprised when I visited PRX Builder’s site to see how few organizations have created a PRX Social Media Press Release thus far. Perhaps it was partly due to the fact that it was not a widely community standard, but I think it is really much more than this.
The main reason I have not been pressing this forward over the past few months was simply the fact that we had to invest too much time arguing for the very need for the press release to evolve and it was tiring and stoopid. I had hoped we would be talking more about what it would do and how it would do it, but instead found a never-ending supply of cynical PR Pros and pessimists who would rather invest their time defending the status quo instead of finding a better way forward. Then of course, there was/is the looks of disdain I received from my peers here in Silicon Valley who wonder why I am working with PR people - the image problem for the industry is on par with that of used car salesman.
Regardless, the communications industry as a whole is at another key crossroads in its history. The Social Media Release is but one way in which the industry’s transformation will be manifested and I am proud of my involvement in driving the conversation forward and particularly thankful for the courageous and forward thinking colleagues who are along for the journey. Brian Solis, Todd Defren, Tom Foremski and Shel Holtz as well as thought leaders from PR Newswire and BusinessWire continue to support and push things forward. I hope you will join us at the midpoint of our journey.
We have some other news to share in the next few weeks, but first, let’s move forward finally on developing a real standard that will benefit us all.
Hi Chris,
I enjoyed our conversation yesterday and am really looking forward to making progress on the hRelease spec.
I did want to mention that the releases on the PRX Releases site only represent releases that have been purchased through PR Newswire or directly through PRX Builder. While this number is lower than I had hoped, it doesn’t represent the actual number of PRX Builder users or the number of people who have experimented with the social media release format.
PRX Builder allows its users a lot of freedom. They can save the release to their website, post it directly to a blog, send it via email, or post it to PR Newswire and PRX Releases. A lot of users have created releases with PRX Builder and then distributed it on their own.
People are also using the PRX Builder site as a way to learn more about social media releases. I’ve posted a number of Brian Solis’ articles on the sidebar and have received a lot of positive responses from people who just want more information. I’ve also had several university classes use PRX Builder as a tool for teaching social media release writing.
So, don’t get discouraged. People are using the social media news release format. It’s now our job to make it even more visible and take it to the next level.
I enjoyed several of your posts and am interested in the changes you and your ilk are proposing. I am a newcomer to the industry and an avid reader of all things social media. I decided to leave a comment asking if you plan to continue using this blog. It’s been a while since you posted.
Best of luck!
absolutely correct. social media very useful through the monitoring the site