Edelman Debuts StoryCrafter Two-Way Press Release

My colleague Phil Gomes has been hard at work redefining what a press release should look like in a two-way world. We launched our first iteration yesterday. It basically breaks down a press release into its core parts, leaving it up to you - the journalist (citizen or pro) - to decide how it should be put together. Most importantly, every press release gets feeds, tags, del.icio.us/digg buttons, trackbacks and comments.

If you take a look at the comments on our first release, you'll notice that some of our harshest critics are there commenting. This is what the two-way world is all about. Put ideas out there and then engage the community in a conversation.

We're really excited about StoryCrafter and feel that the social media news release, which others have worked quite hard to pioneer, is going to evolve. We're looking forward to working collaboratively with our colleagues in the PR industry, journalist and bloggers to further this concept as well as working with our clients to adopt this new format.

Comments

[kob]

How does this fix these press release problems?

-- Too long, too wordy; gushy, overselling superlatives.
-- Missing or selected facts, such as pricing, product release dates.

What's really needed:

-- Clean, sharp and polished writing.
-- Removal of words and phrases such as "revolutionary," "game changing," "market leader (isn't everyone?)"

Crafted writing, spare and precise word use, adds credibility.

[Russell Page]

This is a blatant rip off of Shift Communications' PR 2.0 news release. It's been around for some time, and it looks like Edelman is taking credit for some sort of revolutionary thought that came from somewhere else.

[Simon Collister]

I just don't like the name, Steve. 'StoryCrafter'...? It's compounded by the capitalisation of the 'C'. Yuk!

[Tech Bee]

Todd Defren, at Shift Media, did this a long time ago...(Sometimes last spring).
http://www.pr-squared.com/2006/12/edelman_announces_social_media.html
I've used his free SIFT press release pdf since.Not a word of aknowledgment?

[John Ettorre]

Ah, so Edelman's doing to Shift what Microsoft always does to Google, trying to play catch-up through the me-too strategy. Only the thought leader will always be 12 steps ahead, because they're just smarter and nimbler. Unfortunately, this site and its author lost their credibility completely among serious people with the shameful evasiveness with the Wal-Mart debacle. So why doesn't it surprise me that you're now shilling for your employer even when it's basically copying others?

[Amanda Chapel]

Here is a honest iteration of the release: http://www.strumpette.com/archives/254-Mega-PR-Firm-Releases-StoryMakerUpper-1.0.html

Cheers,

- Amanda

[Rob]

I just wanted to reiterate that this was done a long time ago by Shift. C'mon Steve. Give credit where credit is due.

[Chris Faust]

It's time for a change in company boilerplates as well.

With the continued explosion in blogs, vlogs, RSS feeds, podcasts, and other innovative uses of rich media solutions, I'd like to introduce a new concept or standard for company boilerplates - QuickCasts.

Powered by Onstream Media, QuickCasts allow users to take existing PowerPoint presentations, personally or professionally narrate them using a telephone and send to countless recipients around the world via an embedded link.

Think about it. Not too many journalists actually read a company's boilerplate. Future press releases could come with a standard, embedded QuickCast link that is 3-5 slides in length, lasting no longer than 3 minutes. Think of the rich, dynamic information that can be conveyed rather than today's boring text-only versions.

[Todd Defren]

Hi all (and Steve!) -

Just saw this string of comments and wanted to weigh in with a couple of points...

1) SHIFT's template was "open source" - anyone and everyone, including Edelman, was welcome to use, modify, re-arrange, etc., with no strings attached (and no credit necessary - though, yeah, sure, it's nice!)

2) Though it doesn't happen often, SHIFT and Edelman do compete now and then (both for clients and staff). Again, "credit" is nice but both Edelman and SHIFT are run by capitalists. ;)

3) What Edelman released (as I understand it anyway) is not a re-imagining of the SHIFT template - in fact, they used our template, and I was flattered to see that! Rather, it might compete with PRX Builder, which is a service for creating SMNRs. (Note that SHIFT helped inspire and test PRX Builder, but there is NO contractual nor financial relationship between PRX Builder & SHIFT).

4) SHIFT may have been first with its template, but many people unaffiliated to SHIFT continue to drive its evolution, and to make this a "SHIFT vs. Edelman" debate is really not fair to those folks.

Thank you, though, to everyone who saw fit to mention SHIFT Communications in this dialogue (whether ya'll capitalized it or not!)

Best,
Todd Defren
Principal
SHIFT Communications
www.shiftcomm.com
www.pr-squared.com

[Jeremy Pepper]

So, um, Steve ... you going to jump in and comment? You know that's what you would advise...

As for the Shift release, um, open source people? Not defending Edelman - I'm not a big fan of the new release when there are bigger issues in PR, like the inability to write - but Todd made it for people to take and use the way they see fit.

And, well, seen it before years ago, so nothing that new (besides the fact that most of the stuff cannot be done over the wire).