Sucky press releases and the PR people who write them are getting some great coverage in the mainstream media and especially on blogs like BadPitchBlog and Gawker.

For example, Wyndstorm, "the ideas to revenue social media company," sent a dreadful press release to one blogger who in return wrote a post titled: "This Press Release Sucks. Re-write It to Win a Seth Godin Action Figure." I normally would have never seen this press release, but I follow this blogger on Twitter, as do 1300 other people. The blog post also accrued some 15 comments. Some of the those who commented actually visited the Wyndstorm site (like me) in an attempt to learn more about the product in order to rewrite the press release. Why so much effort over a bad press release?

Out of curiosity, I sent Wyndstorm an email with the link to the blog post to see how they'd react. No response and why would they. The press release likely got decent pick up because it was crappy.

I know what you're thinking. A bad press release impacts sales because the company (and product) loses credibility with media and consumers. That said, bad press releases are actually getting people to do things (e.g., write blog posts, comment, twitter, check out company web sites, forward to friends etc). The real question is: how many people are making purchase decisions based on a bad press release? Sounds like a good project for grant funding. Send checks to...