Resurrecting (pun intended) the “is the press release dead?” argument, Todd Defren of Shift Communications has unveiled the “Social Media Press Release“

In Todd’s own words, “Love it or hate it, what is important is that the banal, unhelpful, cookie-cutter press releases of yore have outlived their pre-Internet usefulness.”

So, the solution is to build a new cookie cutter?

As a social media fan, I actually like the initiative, there are things I like and don’t like so much here (and yes, I’m sure other have already expressed many of these opinions)

Like:

• Bullet points. I’m a big fan of bullet points in releases. Makes the information easy to find, I always use them when I can. Also, the way the quotes are organized take this idea to an interesting extreme.
• Recognition of social media–this is a bit more complicated as not everyone is going to want this or even understand it (I’m talking clients and even agencies here), but the forward-thinking part I like the best
• The “Open Source” policy. Thanks, Todd– I predict most of us will probably take the parts of this release we like and run with them as our own, with or (more likely) without credit. Of course, we’d do that anyway, and expect the same treatment in return.
• The logical extension of David Meerman Scott’s “New Rules of PR.”

Don’t like so much:

• Not every client or industry will want or like this format. Clients like to do what they like to do, so adoption is an uphill battle–not that that’s a bad thing, but it is reality.
• Also, social media is still an alien world to many industries who haven’t heard of blogs and RSS, don’t feel they need to, and, in many cases, may be right (for now). I guess you can spin this as my saying this is “ahead of its time.” But I’ll steal from Jeremy Pepper and say that “baby steps” toward this is a more realistic approach.
• Fixation on the press release. I don’t believe the press release is dead, but the idea of the relaease as the heart of PR is. It’s great that releases are optimized for maximum pickup, but if you really want (and want your clients) to be respected by social media, engage in the conversation.

Illustration? The way most of us found out about this new press release format is through online dialogue on our industry blogs– I could have read through them all and gotten the info I need without ever actually seeing the press release about the format.

The social media bit I really love here is the de.licio.us page SHIFT set up– that’s more useful than the release itself for tracking the conversation.