Josh Bernoff of Forrester has “a new model for PR and influencers.” It’s a fantastic idea and one that I really hope will take off. Actually, I wished it had taken off two years ago.

You see, back in 2007 I started researching ways to improve the quality and relevance of PR pitches. I spent 6 months interviewing journalists and bloggers about how PR pros could serve them better. Based on that research I built Newsvetter, an online platform (not this blog) that improves the quality of PR pitches by asking users to answer ten basic questions every time they share news with the media.

But that’s not all. Journalists could also create their own profiles and specify how they liked to be pitched. They could also direct all pitches through the Newsvetter platform and then rate and comment on the pitches. I even created a profile badge so bloggers could feature it on their site to encourage on-target pitching. It was all quite wonderful.

The site launched in 2008 and had the fortune of getting some initial positive reviews from influential PR people like Shel Holtz, Sam Whitmore, Jon Greer and Kevin Dugan. But it was short lived.

Only a few journalists took the time to fill out their profiles. PR people started using it as a free press release site paying little attention to the quality of their pitches. A few PR people complained that the questions were too hard (they are not). In other words, laziness killed it. So I took it off line.

Now Josh Bernoff has HIRPS (Herpes?) which stands for Highly Relevant Pitching System. It proposes a profile system for influencers, a pitching system and ratings for PR people. Already he has floated the idea to the big wigs at Cision, one of the largest PR database companies. Cision would be an obvious choice and they would certainly have the resources to build and market it. Personally, I think this approach would be better suited to HARO, where this would be a nice add-on service for the journalists.

But the problem of laziness remains. If they build it, will PR and journalists come?

I wouldn’t count on journalists and bloggers to participate in any great numbers. That said, they would certainly welcome higher quality content from PR people.

It will be up to the PR pros to take the first step. Unfortunately, I have seen little movement on that front since 2007.

Maybe all that is needed is for a well-connected person like Bernoff to get things moving in the right direction. I sure hope so.

P.S. For those curious, here’s a slimmed down version of my PR pitching platform.

If you want to poke around without registering, use:

un: johndoe

pw: johndoe

Countless articles are written every day decrying the demise of journalism and all of democracy along with it, but many of them are little more than personal rants from recently unemployed journalists or romanticized writings that pine for a "Front Page" era that never really existed in our lifetime.

One observation made in various venues lately does resonate, however, and it has important consequences for the PR profession as well as the media. It involves the decline of "specialty" beats.

At one time it seemed a requirement for any ambitious newspaper to have a stable of reporters who focused on specific areas--such as science, religion, economics, legal affairs, and environmental issues--beyond the traditional police and city council beats that were considered necessary but pedestrian. (For those of you who are fluent in marketing-speak, think "verticals.")

The formalization of specialty beats is a relatively recent one phenomenon, at least on a historical timeline. A generation ago, newspapers didn't even have separate sections devoted to business, lifestyle, food, and certainly technology.

The idea was sound, to become expert in topics that are of particular interest to readers. But as resources have dwindled, these so-called specialists have been viewed as a luxury that can no longer be afforded.

So in their Sisyphean struggle to survive, many mainstream news organizations are doing exactly the wrong thing as they cut their staffs to the bone. Thinking that they need to keep the most versatile reporters to cover the broadest range of subjects--aka, doing more with fewer resources--editors are turning everyone into general-assignment reporters. It's the ultimate destination of a misguided path laid long ago to be all things to all readers.

An article in The Nation underscored the problem using a compelling example: The firing of science writers at the height of the swine flu epidemic:

"It's no secret the newspaper industry is hemorrhaging staff writers and slashing coverage as its business model collapses in the face of declining readership and advertising revenues. But less recognized is how this trend is killing off a breed of journalistic specialists that we need now more than ever ... who are uniquely trained for the most difficult stories, those with a complex technical component that are nevertheless critical to politics and society."

Although the immediate effects of this transition will obviously be felt on the news side, PR professionals who recognize this trend first can gain an edge on their competitors--or, at the very least, ward against potential disasters created by journalists who misreport a client's information.

In the silver-lining department, there is an opportunity for PR reps to become subject-area experts and shift the balance of power. In this age of declining faith in media accuracy, corporate newsrooms and blogs can draw journalists to you, rather than the other way around--even for H1N1 information.

Unfortunately, there are far more negatives to this universal dumbing-down syndrome. But here too, one can take preventive measures in an age where getting it out first often trumps getting it right. And we all know who gets blamed when a client's information is erroneously reported. (That's right, Sparky, it's you.)

So here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• The importance of simplicity: Communications with the media need to be clear, concise, and compelling. Identify the most newsworthy elements of your news and why it matters to them. Run your elevator pitch by someone outside your PR department (like your mother) to make sure a non-specialist will understand it.
• Know your media target: Research your reporters before contacting them. Don't rely on information from third-party media databases and corporate press lists because they probably contain erroneous or outdated information.
• Corporate blogging: Minimize the use of the dreaded press release and focus instead on developing your own corporate news channel that distributes information via blogs, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, or some other platform that you control. This will get your information to both consumers and the media.

With any luck, we can collectively stave off this intellectual downsizing through new conduits of information. After all, it's all just content--no matter who provides it.

Only a scant few months since publishing the first "Field Guide to Common Journalists," Newsvetter's media anthropologists have turned up an exciting new species.

This hitherto undiscovered genus is something of a hybrid, neither fish (journalist) nor fowl (PR rep) by classic definition. Instead, it appears to represent a nascent breed of information professional hired by companies to report their own news.

The name of this particular missing link is Rich Hammond, a veteran hockey writer from the Los Angeles Daily News, who has just been hired by the Los Angeles Kings as a "beat writer/columnist for LAKings.com, the club's official website."

Other sportswriters have been hired by teams in previous years, namely baseball reporters for MLB.com and football writers for specific NFL franchises, and far more have been recruited as traditional publicists. But the Kings specifically cited the "changing world as it relates to the landscape and consumption of sports news content," in their announcement last week. Team spokesman Michael Altieri was more specific, saying in an interview that "there's been declining news coverage of us."

Companies have increasingly begun to create and package their own content to resemble independent news, using PR professionals. This has been an outgrowth of necessity as much as innovation: As news outlets continue to decline, so have the number of reporters to target for story pitches.

But the Kings have taken the concept a step further by hiring a seasoned reporter as a staff "beat writer." It's an idea that makes perfect sense.

A few years ago Mike Sitrick, spin doctor to the stars, explained to Los Angeles magazine why most of his employees were former reporters: "I thought it would be easier to teach journalists what PR is than to teach publicists what journalism is." Sitrick--whose clients include Paris Hilton and Michael Ovitz--was speaking of reporters' ability to manage the news, but it is a logical extension to have them write it as well.

Not surprisingly, the Kings' move has drawn the usual questions about ethics and credibility. But as we've noted many times, commercial media are hardly immune from corporate influence either. And even if they were, how different would Hammond's daily dispatches be from their standard beat reporting?

We suspect that most rabid fans would rather have such information than none at all, regardless of whether it comes from journalists or PR professionals. And considering the latest Pew Research report that credibility of the press is at a 20-year low, we doubt many readers will care who's signing his paychecks as long as they get their fill of stats and injury updates in a timely and accurate manner.

This is not meant to sound Pollyannish; quite the contrary. We don't expect Hammond to break any scandals about the Kings' owners or management anytime soon, despite the promise that "Rich will have full editorial control in his new position."

The simple fact is that much of what appears in mainstream news stories could easily come directly from their subjects and sources--a concept that's central to Newsvetter's philosophy. Even when media outlets were fat and happy, so-called enterprise and investigative reporting represented but a tiny fraction of the general news flow anyway.

The future of that type of journalism may depend on another evolutionary link.

As much as we're tempted to rant yet again about the inanity of press releases, we at Newsvetter have promised ourselves to stay focused on the positive ever since our last blood-pressure checkup.

To that end, we herewith officially laud Boeing for adopting a new way to provide information that forgoes the dreaded e-mail blast that no one ever reads and wastes tons of money. The aerospace giant has created a landing site (pardon the pun) that touts its new KC-7A7 line to replace the Air Force's aging tanker fleet, a contract worth a cool $40 billion.

The special site has been designed cleanly and accessibly, coming close to the "two-click-maximum" navigation concept that Newsvetter espouses. Mainstream journalists, trade reporters, investors, subcontractors, and even Pentagon procurement officers can all follow updates on Twitter, subscribe to its RSS feeds, sign up for online newsletters, or simply bookmark the main page.

In addition, readers can share Boeing's videos because the company was smart enough to post them using YouTube, not some proprietary technology. Also featured are photos, fact sheets, aggregated news headlines, and, most important, a blog.

Why is the blog most important? Because it is the main element that distinguishes the site from a static web page or a "social media press release" (a.k.a. online press release with pictures). A live blog is central to the perception that this destination is THE news hub for internal and external information on the subject.

Welcome to the future of corporate news, where the tables have been turned a full 180 degrees. Rather than a media outlet publishing a story that links out to company resources and information, sites such as this will increasingly do precisely the opposite.

Of course, we couldn't call ourselves true Newsvetters without offering a quibble or two.

Boeing launched the site yesterday with six blog items apparently written in advance--but, as of this writing, nothing has been posted since. Allowing the site to lie fallow would defeat the purpose of making it a leading information authority, thereby missing a huge but fleeting opportunity to draw returning readers with such newsworthy items as developments in the contract process and related global trade issues.

Why should the site passively receive headlines from newspapers and wire services instead of summarizing them in the blog to provide a comprehensive news source of its own?

Making matters worse, all but one of the existing posts appears under the byline of "Team Boeing," a monolithic label implying that the blog is written by drones not unlike the remote-controlled aircraft produced by other divisions of the company. The name itself is equally unfortunate, for it conjures some kind of cheerleading squad festooned with "B"-lettered sweaters and pom-poms--exactly the wrong image for presenting credible information.

These points might seem nitpicky, but details are important when setting precedents. After all, considering that the site was announced at the Air Force Association's 2009 Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition, Boeing must know that it's onto something new, if not groundbreaking.

Still, it's a noble first effort. And anything that hastens the demise of the traditional press release will be most appreciated by us, as well as our physicians.

My kids are starting kindergarten in a few days, but the lump in my throat isn't a bittersweet reaction to seeing my boys leave the nest. Rather, it's from a fear that they'll come back infected with the swine flu.

According to local news reports, Oregon state health officials are warning that "40 percent of the state's population could become ill with the virus." That's 1.5 million cases. Of course, much of this is just the media's interpretation of the facts--and therein lies the issue.

In matters concerning life and death I don't want to be forced to rely (solely) on a news media obsessed with body counts and hot zones. Same goes for the un-vetted information that will inevitably float around on various sites, blogs, and social networks.

I want a carefully tended sanctuary, free of rhetoric and jargon, that provides information meeting the following criteria:

• Actionable: Practical advice on preventing or treating the disease, such as washing hands, getting vaccinated, and sleeping at least 8 hours.
• Credible: Information from state and federal epidemiologists on the front lines of the battle.
• Current: Constant updates with the latest verifiable facts about the epidemic's status.
• Local: Geographic context to the information most relevant for specific communities.
• Social: Information that can be shared easily and immediately with family, friends, and co-workers. This would help make credible information the most prevalent on the web.

So who should create this sanctuary? I believe that health authorities in each state have a responsibility to open an online newsroom or crisis center to educate the general populace. What I have found so far, however, is a long way from ideal.

Oregon's Public Health Division website, for example, has made a decent start but still could use a good shot in the arm. Here are a few basic things that would make the site infinitely more useful and usable:

• Put a big "SWINE FLU" button front and center so that people can find it easily and quickly.
• Convert all the PDFs into web pages with a "printer friendly" option. This helps with version control, allowing staff to update the pages without needing to update PDFs, which can also take a long time to download.
• Create a blog to handle breaking news, which can be optimized for search engines and distributed easily.
• Maximize the ways to share information, using such tools as Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, YouTube videos, and RSS feeds. At the very least, it should allow readers to email content directly from the site.
• Edit like crazy so that only the most pertinent information is placed in front of the reader. Make sure all content is only relevant to the swine flu.

There's no question that health officials face an enormously complicated and terrifying task ahead. That makes it all the more important to provide information in a way that fosters public confidence.

And with all the free communication tools available today, these officials have an opportunity to set a new standard in the way information is managed in health emergencies.

Update: Based on this post, I worked with Ike Pigott to put together the NW Oregon Swine Flu Newsroom. You can read Ike's write up here.

You may not know it, but there are some close parallels between PR and the real estate business these days. A blog on PowerSites, an online real estate listing company, offers an observation to this point that is admittedly self-serving but no less true:

"Over the last few years I have spoken to many Realtors who refuse to cut newspaper ads from their marketing plans. The reason is normally, 'Sellers expect to see their homes in the newspaper.' I respond with one of two questions; 'How do sellers find you?' or 'Where are sellers looking for their next home?' The answer is invariably, 'Online.' "

If you're in the business of public relations, chances are that more than a few clients have said their first choice for story placement is the front page of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal.

And chances are you tried to explain that very few companies get front-page play in these newspapers, let alone any coverage in them at all.

Yet rather than spending your valuable time with such defensive discussions, we suggest taking a different tack: Tell your clients why newspapers are not the best places to promote their businesses.

This will sound like heresy to mainstream journalists and old-line PR types. But unless your client is a Fortune 100 company that simply wants exposure just for the sake of it, there are more effective (and realistic) ways to generate new business leads.

The most glaring reason to steer clear of newspapers, of course, is their death spiral in circulation. But there is an obvious corollary that's more important to underscore for clients: If the medium is dying, then new generations of consumers won't be reading it. As the publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle said in a 2005 interview, "I hate to read the obits because half of those people are our subscribers."

A major reason that metro dailies are in decline is their long-standing goal of trying to be all things to all people. In the Information Age, with its infinite long tails, specifically targeted relationships between buyers and sellers are far more valuable. Think of eBay.

So rather than letting clients waste time and money on this exercise in futility, we should all be doing our level best to teach them that many alternatives can be infinitely more effective. By taking control of their own information, for example--through vehicles ranging from a simple blog to a full-scale corporate newsroom--there is far more chance of perpetuating a current stream of content about their products and services that will likely reach the right people if designed properly.

Let's say, for example, that your client runs a mid-sized company that provides a new type of eco-friendly dry-cleaning equipment. Unless it's a Nobel Prize-winning invention that will revolutionize the industry, it's not likely to find its way into the Times or the Journal. So it would make more sense to focus on targeted venues and channels such as trade sites, green blogs, small-business networks, and, yes, even Twitter. And be sure to build a Vetted Newsroom where potential customers can learn everything about the new products.

In the miraculous event that the newspapers did cover your client, they probably wouldn't produce more than a few column inches--hardly the kind of glowing article that would instantly propel an anonymous business to international stardom. And after your client has spent thousands of dollars to browbeat reporters into writing something just to stop the incessant phone calls, all that would be left is a scrap of yellowed paper and a corresponding online version that would likely get buried within minutes of posting.

We usually agree with Seth Godin's musings but must take exception with his recent contention that "everyone else" reads the New York Times. Besides, even if it were true, how long will it last?

If there is any doubt that the idea of a corporate news site can work for almost any type of business, consider the ISC Newsroom: It's a sugar company.

Not just any sugar company, but "an authoritative voice in the sugar industry--U.S., Mexico, and elsewhere ... a one-stop shop for the best thinking and views on sugar and all of the issues/market forces that surround it," according to David E. Henderson of The News Group Net, the Washington-based consultancy that built the newsroom for the Imperial Sugar Company with veteran journalists.

The goal is admirable, and the concept is sound. In fact, it sounds a lot like the corporate newsroom we recommend here at Newsvetter. There is one crucial difference, however: In our view, the ISC Newsroom needs a lot more vetting.

It's true that the site is dynamic and features content that is decidedly unlike typical press release copy--which is to say that it's relatively free of jargon and is actually of some interest to people other than those inside the company. But it's also an example of having too much of a good thing.

Upon visiting the newsroom, the reader is bombarded with content, which includes not one but two slide shows, at the top and the right side of the page. The "stories" are fine--a mix of features and brief blog-type summaries that link to external articles and items.

Dozens of headlines fall under categories with such labels as "News," "Customers," "Company," "Latest Sugar Industry News," and "Sugar Industry Related News and Resources." Then we have a nav bar that lists "Communities," "Company," "Customers," "Featured" (?), "Industry," "New Products" (finally!), "News" (again), "Partners," and "Photos."

It's enough to make us diabetic. Even if there really is such a voracious appetite for sugar-related information to warrant this kind of coverage, we would argue that it can be edited and packaged in a way that doesn't overwhelm the senses.

For one thing, a red flag should immediately be raised any time you have a subject mentioned in several categories on the same page, as "news" is here. Second, when you get beyond four or five, it's time to ask whether you truly need all of them or you're just piling on instead of honing and reorganizing.

Case in point: The "Customers" category in the ISC Newsroom has only one entry, which argues for it being consolidated with others. And is there really a need for a section called "Featured"? This, by definition, would seem to argue for its content to be displayed front and center on the main page.

In fairness, such specific elements may have been demanded by the client; we all know how that goes. Nevertheless, it's worth reinforcing the need for reader accessibility, which businesses must accept if they are to have a successful newsroom.

This is why Newsvetter's mantra is "less is more," whether it's a sentence or an entire site. Vetting is tough work but, in the end, pays off for the reader and the consumer--and, in turn, for your business.

In explaining Amazon's extraordinarily lengthy beta-testing period, Jeff Bezos told me in 1995, "Anyone can come up with 20 great ideas. It's choosing the top 3 and executing that's the hard part."

Amen.

A lot of what I've encountered in more than 25 years as a news editor and reporter will seem obvious, boring, or even cliched to those in the business. But Andrew is always reminding me that this blog, and Newsvetter in general, is not directed at other journalists.

To that end, those of you who are not accustomed to writing for the public should know a few things before deciding to bare your soul. Although we have encouraged companies and individuals to write blogs, it's also important to know why reporters are supposed to be thick-skinned:

• Feedback will be negative. An old axiom in the news business is that people only bother to write letters to the editor or post comments when they're upset; the vast majority might actually agree with you, but it's human nature to complain far more than we praise. Even for those of us who occasionally write letters commending the service of a waiter or a salesperson, we're probably far more likely to complain if we do anything at all.
• You will offend people. And you may not even be aware of it, let alone know what you did to provoke them. Readers are funny that way--there are a lot of angry people out there, and many will take it out on you. One of the downsides of instant publishing is spontaneity; a lot of people simply don't have filters.
• Some will try to discredit you. At newspapers, critics accused us of being beholden to advertisers; on the web, they said we couldn't objectively cover the digital medium because we were a part of it. Needless to say, a corporate blog or other content enterprise that's part of a business (like this one) is especially vulnerable.

Now this isn't to say that the world is full of hate and that you should just go live in a secluded cabin, Ted Kaczynski-style. This post is just intended to note the less pleasant side of becoming your own news outlet.

Besides, if you want to have impact, you'll inevitably tick off some people along the way. Another newsroom saying is that, if those on all sides of an issue are upset with what you've written, it means that you've probably done a good job telling a story right down the middle.

The best writers, whether journalists or essayists, will attempt to make their articles "bulletproof." That often means disarming potential criticism by acknowledging up front anything that can be used against you, from affiliations and personal relationships to means of support--that old transparency thing.

Beyond that, just be prepared to take your lumps and move on. In her surrealistic ramblings, Sarah Palin did manage to make one lucid observation: "Your enemies won't believe you anyway."

She's right.

On Monday Mike mentioned the importance of having a "producer" in your corporate newsroom, someone who is "obsessed with the distribution of your content." Not a bad description for what I've been doing for the last year and half with Newsvetter and Guhmshoo.

Many of you may have figured out a lot of this on your own already, but I thought it might be worth sharing some experiences with readers who are new to the content business. Using the delivery truck as a metaphor, here are four basic recommendations:

Step 1: Carry something people will want. As obvious as it may seem, this single most important point is often missed entirely. Before embarking on Newsvetter and Guhmshoo, I dedicated a great deal of time and research to identify a problem, learn what people needed, and offer a practical solution. I can't stress enough how much sacrifice is involved in the process--you can forget about remuneration--but there truly is no substitute for hard work. Otherwise, you'll be driving nothing more than a garbage truck.

Step 2: Choose the best path for delivery. There are many routes you can take, but the key is finding the most efficient way to bring your product to your customers without landing in the neighbor's driveway or on the roof. I chose Twitter partly because my target audience was most active there, as well as simplicity (140-character limit) and redistribution (re-Tweeting). This does not mean that Twitter has more value than FriendFeed, Facebook, or other applications. I tried them all (yes, even Identi.ca and Second Life), and I would recommend that you experiment with all the latest shiny toys available.

Step 3: Meet the people on your route. Before I was really active on Twitter, I lurked to get a feel for the place--how people used the medium, what they got away with, and what they didn't. I also identified the leading Twitter users in my area of interest. I tried to engage them, to get them to look at my feed in hopes that they might find something of interest. Don't be shy to do this; it's no different from walking into a room and engaging people you don't know in conversation. Sure, you'll make mistakes and some people will be jackasses (as in the physical world), but eventually you'll assemble a group of people you respect who will be happy to share your work. Again, if you have something worth delivering, you won't have a problem. If everybody hates you, repeat Step 1.

Step 4: Deliver with a personal touch. I want people to read my stuff, and that often means delivering content that is highly specific to them and their interests. For example, one of my first Guhmshoo toons featured Peter Shankman skydiving with one of the guys from ProfNet. Shankman really appreciated the toon and shared it with his huge network of fans. This gave my cartoons instant visibility and, I hope, credibility--two features necessary for your delivery channel to succeed. This approach proved effective with numerous other toons.

You may have noticed that I've left out one of the most common delivery routes used by public relations agencies, the newswires (PRNewswire, PRWeb, et al). The omission was intentional because these "blasts" or "sprays," as they are known in the industry, are the opposite of what you should strive for: indiscriminate, impersonal, and--not surprisingly--ineffective.

What you should do is create your own distribution system, tailor it to your needs, and control every inch of it so that you can make adjustments on the fly. Believe me, you'll need to.

Since posting the FAQ about our "Vetted Newsrooms," we've gotten some questions from people concerned about the time and resources necessary to maintain a living content site.

The answers, of course, vary broadly depending on the size of your business and what you're trying to accomplish. At the smallest operation--a one-person shop, maybe not even full-time--it might just be a matter of creating a page for your product and updating it as needed, with or without a regularly written blog or "news" component.

But even for a multinational corporation, the resources needed to run a company-based news organization may be fewer than you think. Let's break them down in a hypothetical company of 10,000 employees with a wealth of content that would be valuable to its clients and consumers but is difficult to find between its sprawling websites and databases:

• The first thing you must do is hire someone with experience in building a real-time content operation, preferably with a general news background. Why? Because this point person needs to have a bird's-eye view of your operation from a consumer perspective, detached from stagnating internal processes and the inevitable fiefdoms that pervade the typical workplace. Editing experience will also be required, especially if you don't have the resources for proofreaders.
• Next you need two or three "reporters" to mine your troves of data and interview people working on interesting and/or important projects (not always the same thing), then write newsroom posts in an accessible way that's compelling to experts and novices alike. These aren't press releases, but your version of "stories." Guest columns are also most welcome from other staff, but be aware that they'll most likely need substantial editing.
• You'll also need at least one "producer" who will construct and maintain the newsroom's infrastructure, handle multimedia applications, and make sure that the technologies play nice. Perhaps most important, this person needs to be obsessed with the distribution of your content on any available platform while being ultra-vigilant for emerging pipelines.
• Depending on the degree of your ambition, you might consider snagging someone from the creative department as the newsroom art director, designing everything from spot gifs to major display components. This would be of particular importance if you want to "make over" the look of your newsroom regularly, the way a daily newspaper does its front page.
• Hire an external web developer to build your newsroom. Internal IT honchos will say they'll need months to go over spec sheets, architectural details, and legacy integration issues before starting, which will likely fall behind dozens or hundreds of other projects already in the queue.

Done. Here you've got a corporate news site of your own, staffed from outside the company or culled from existing departments but not beholden to the established hierarchy.

And you've only used 0.03 or 0.04 percent of that 10,000-employee payroll. Newsvetter would be happy to assist in any way that we can, naturally, but all this can be accomplished internally.

PR agencies and marketing departments will scoff at this notion, telling you it's impossible to accomplish this task with such a small staff. But remember that these are the same people who hold dozens of meetings and spend weeks writing press releases that no one will read. The reality is that corporate newsrooms could replace a good portion of internal or external PR, advertising, and marketing functions.

Consider this: A company can spend thousands of dollars on the composition and distribution of a single traditional press release. An experienced professional blogger or journalist should be able to write a 400-word post in an hour or two, depending on the level of complexity, then move onto the next topic while the producer takes the first item and search-optimizes it for Google, fires it off on Twitter, and posts it on Facebook fan pages.

If done correctly, this news operation can be extremely effective in displaying and distributing your content to those who actually want it, in a manner that can be legible and even enjoyed by relative laypeople who may become customers because they finally understand what you do.