David Unleashed

I just finished a three city tour (Austin, San Antonio and Houston) with Business Wire. The purpose of the tour was to explain Business Wire’s EON services. PRWeb makes up part of the EON service.

I was impressed both with the number of people that showed up and the diversity of the group. Heck, we even had a little Market Wire plant in San Antonio. I thought it was very democratic of Business wire to allow this person to attend knowing the nature of her interest. Because of the diversity in the group we started with varying levels of technical sophistication. This made it a bit challenging in trying to cover the product because we had to try and dynamically adjust the presentation as we went along.

Speaking of Market Wire. Paul Dyer should be embarrassed by his latest post. I really feel kind of sorry for this guy. Why? Because apparently he is charged with promoting the social media distribution of Market Wire; a company that, by all indications, has either little understanding of the space or is intentionally ignoring best practices for this emerging space. I sincerely hope it is a lack of understanding because that can be corrected. I would rather help them course correct then see them trample the best practices of those who have spent so much time building this space thereby threatening the long term viability of social media PR.

I also feel sorry for Paul because he finds himself employed by a company that has contributed nothing interesting or new to the industry. For all of the ribbing I have dished out to other competitors in our industry, at least they are trying new things. Market Wire, on the other hand is intellectually lazy leaning on PRWeb and PR Newswire for product development. I challenge anyone to show me anything Market Wire has done over the last 3-6 years that is original. Their entire SEO model for example is modeled after PR Newswire model, which I still believe has its own unnecessary limitations. Market Wire also lacks any sort of thought leadership. Their marketing collateral simply parrots what PRWeb and SEO-PR have been evangelizing for years. So to recap, Marketwire has contributed nothing to the industry in terms of new technology in over half a decade (If I could remember back further I might be able to expand my claims here as far back as a decade. I certainly cannot see anything that they have contributed since we started PRWeb a decade ago.) and zero through leadership.

Now for the belly chuckle (those that know me know that it requires a lot of momentum go get a belly chuckle out of my massive belly). Paul actually had the gall to critisize Busines Wire for taking the bold step of incorporating xhtml markup as an alternate distribution within their newsML feeds. I too was a bit skeptical when BW made the announcement back in August, 2006. But I have had time to reflect on this since and it is actually pretty cool forward thinking stuff. Unfortunately Paul and company are not trained in forward thinking. What Paul does not realize is that the BW feed actually includes both the ASCII (ANPA) content and xhtml content. I am sure that it will take time for the XHTML feed to become fully adopted by companies, search engines and web sites. That said, at least they are getting started. Thought leadership is about sticking your neck out and taking risks. It is about doing what is right for your customer long-term.

So where does Market Wire focus their efforts? Well, it appears that they are more concerned with being disrespectful (Anyone remember their attacks on Warren Buffet?) and negative marketing against their competitors. I was flattered several years ago when they started calling our customers on a daily basis to try to covert them to Market Wire. It was an indication to me that we had “arrived”. We were obviously cutting into their revenue. Luckily we have had a very loyal customer base and they send us all of the dishonest Market Wire marketing crap. We were even fortunate enough to count MW board of director members as customers back before they sold. It was really kind of cool. The good thing here is that customers are more savvy today and they are easily annoyed by the MW approach to marketing. Sometime I may post the hideous claims made by MW to PRWeb clients. I have resisted so far because I find more value in spending my time building our brand and providing thought leadership for the industry. It is almost always a sign of weakness when marketing goes negative. It basically amounts to throwing up your arms and acknowledging that you have nothing good to say about your offering.

So, let’s all cut Paul some slack. He has a hard job.

David

P.S. Paul, I think I figured out what the B.S. in your post stood for. Could it possibly stand for “Better Service”? Let me know, I think I nailed it.

If you read my blog last month you will see how aggravated I get by these “social media bullies” that think a video camera or laptop computer entitles them to unrestrained access to content. Deny that access and the best they can do is to ridicule. No honest debate or discussion.

Today I was invited to speak at an event hosted by the Dallas bureau of Business Wire, a PRWeb partner. Giovanni apparently did not like it too much when he was not permitted to video tape the event. Well as it turns out, I think this was the correct decision by Business Wire. Not because I am camera shy. (I hope to be at the launch of the SMC Dallas Chapter tonight, so Giovanni bring your camera. Look for me–my name is McInnis without the G.)

Here is why I think it was the right decision.

1. This was a closed event. Business Wire plans on hosting this event across the country as an exclusive introduction to SEO and social media to their client base and prospects. The entire event loses its exclusivity if it is rolled out in a video cast. Giovanni was invited as a guest, not as a video blogger to cover the event.

2. People paid to be at this event and took time out of their day to attend. Have you had any luck video casting from SES, Adtech or Pubcon? I don’t think so. I have attended all of these events and at most you see bloggers in session. Podcasting and video casting is generally restricted to private interviews. Giovanni never asked me for an interview directly, podcast or otherwise. I had the rest of the afternoon left and would have been happy to sit down with him.

3. The event would have not made a great vidcast anyway as the AV folks installed faulty equipment and we had no sound in the room. Again, not Business Wire’s fault.

4. Pick content that is of value to your audience. Giovanni, the event was a very basic introduction designed to provide a 30,000 foot view and get PR people thinking about new opportunities. If I were you I would focus on stuff that provides more value to your audience.

5. Businesses have the right to exist within the confines of our legal system. They also have a need to generate income and yes, profits. Who do you think pays your bills? Let businesses do what they do so that you can continue to enjoy the privileges you have as part of this system. As a side note, “transparency”, at least as defined by the eSocialists of the Cluetrain and their lemmings, is a dying concept.

Finally, to circle around to my earlier comment, ownership of a video camera does not entitle anyone to come in and video tape an event. What ever happened to the “living room” rule? You know the concept, behave in the blogoshpere as you would like to be treated in your own living room.

Giovanni, if I come to your house as an invited guest with a video camera do I have an automatic right to video tape anything? I guess at least you asked and respected the wishes of the hostess; although I understand that you were given the opportunity to blog about the event. Good on you there. But to then go out and pout about it on your blog? Not so cool.

I could go on but I have to do some work before SMC tonight. Capitalism. Gotta love it.

Previously available only at the $200 distribution level, PRWeb announced that its podcast service will be available to press releases distributed at all distribution levels for a nominal fee of $100 per episode.  In just 10 months since launching its podcast service PRWeb has produced over 1,700 podcast episodes–making it the largest podcast service in the industry and one of the more prolific podcast services on the web.

In order to make the service more broadly available, podcasting is no longer included free of charge at the $200 distribution level.  In January we will remedy this by allowing our platform to upload user generated podcasts to be hosted at PRWeb for press releases distributed at the $200 service level.

The press release is available here.

In the most simplest of terms, PRWeb is allowing visitors to take sound bites or entire podcast episodes and roll them into their own podcast and or CGM (Consumer Generated Content) productions.  This is actually great news for the podcast community which is constantly on the prowl for ideas and content to fill talk show formats.  Our entire archive past and present is available for their sampling.

Let us know  how you are using the podcasts.  (This is not a requirement but we do find it interesting.)

Enjoy. — David

Well, I haven’t heard any rumblings this week about the death of the
press release so I thought I would inject something into the digital
workspace.  Actually, I have watched and read most of the comments over
the last few months proclaiming the death of the press release.   While
I think I understand the motives of those who are eager to pronounce
the death of the press release I do not agree that the press release
has outlived its usefulness.  Now as the Founder and CEO of PRWeb, one
of the industry’s leading online press release Newswires, you would
expect me to say that.  Now let me try to explain.

Back in 1997 when we officially launched PRWeb, we had tons of e-mail
messages chastising us for using the term press release.  The argument
was that the press release was outdated and we should call it something
like “news release,” “media release” or any number of other monikers
that were suggested. To this day I continue to call it a press
release.  Why?  Am I hard headed?  Well perhaps, but the fact remains
that press release is what the world understands.  It is what they
search for on the Internet.  We still buy the terms “news release” and
“media release” but they remain much less important than the term
“press release.”

Now back to today. Does a person cease to be a person because he/she
graduates from years of college and becomes a medical doctor?  No, that
person has a new function but he/she is still a person.  Do we
pronounce a father dead because he has a grandchild? No, his form (man
and person) remain constant but he now has additional functionality. Is
the press release dead?  No, it has evolved.  At PRWeb, we feel that we
have led its evolution.  Think of all the new concepts that we have
introduced to the market in the last 8 years.  Search engine optimized
press releases, direct-to-consumer distribution, social bookmarking,
podcasting and trackbacks are just a few of the many innovations that
we have introduced to the space.

I have just finished a podcast with David Meerman Scott of Web Ink Now and Brian Clark of Coppyblogger.com
where we spent thirty minutes discussing how the press release has
changed and how PRWeb’s role has changed as a leader in this movement.
Listen here; at PRWebPodcast.com. It’s only 30 minutes of your time and these guys know their stuff.

It is a great time to be in PR.

David