Friday, September 28, 2007

Google Alerts, why press releases are more important than ever

Via the essential Spin Thicket I see that one of my fellow PR bloggers is taking another whack at the press release:

The Future of the Press Release - Part I, Acceptance

According to Outsell, Inc. in November 2006, 51% of information technologists (IT) source their news from press releases found on Yahoo or Google News over traditional trade journals. While this is technology, I can assure you that this stat is probably equally compelling across a variety of major industries. What this means is that press releases are no longer limited to journalists, bloggers, and analysts, but also read by customers directly in order to help them make important decisions.


I can attest to the truth of this. At the last meeting of NCC AIIM I sat next to a civil servant and proceeded to ask him about his sources of IT news. It emerged that he has Google News subscriptions to key words related to his agency’s work and reads anything connected to that subject matter. He actually preferred corporate press releases to trade publications as he didn't need a filter as he put it.

I have to say that I was distressed to learn this, while I am very careful about the accuracy of Presto Vivace releases, I do not recommend that readers get their news from flacks, however conscientious.

2 comments:

Scott Baradell said...

It's so nice to feel essential:)

Yep, I wouldn't get my news from flacks, either. Problem is, just about everybody seems to be flacking something these days.

Anonymous said...

The "flack" is wrapped in news, or so it seems.