[Part Four in a series.]

So much has happened since I started this series back in July, and since Amy Gahran and I launched our investigation into RegFD, blogs and press releases back in January. Let’s bring you up to speed.

February, 2006
Tom Foremski posted his infamous “Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!” tira…, er, article in a fit of anger after having received his 1 millionth inappropriate press release in email (I’m just guessing on that stat–it could be higher). In it, he suggests the following:

Deconstruct the press release into special sections and tag the information so that as a publisher, I can pre-assemble some of the news story and make the information useful.

• Provide a brief description of what the announcement is, but leave the spin to the journalists. The journalists are going to go with their own spin on the story anyway, so why bother? Keep it straightforward rather than spintastic.
• Provide a page of quotes from the CEO or other C-level execs.
• Provide a page of quotes from customers, if applicable.
• Provide a page of quotes from analysts, if applicable.
• Provide financial information in many different formats.
• Provide many links inside the press release copy, and also provide a whole page of relevant links to other news stories or reference sources.

May
Inspired by Tom’s tirade, the wheels started turning. First to the starting line is SHIFT Communications, with Todd Defren’s first cut at a new press release format back in May.

Unfortunately, a lot of people just didn’t get it. Poor Todd had to answer hundreds of questions about how to make the PDF file, what’s a tag, etc. We had our own concerns, but have lent support to the extent that a competitive company can…

A comment my colleague Doug Haslam posted on our blog in response to SHIFT’s release is worth repeating:

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.

June
Tom Foremski posted again, this time with a plea for help in turning Todd and Tom’s vision into reality. The man to step up to the plate? Chris Heuer, a Renaissance man (in Tom’s words, but who’s to argue) who combines business savvy, geekiness, marketing experience and a social conscience–who’d-a-thunk? Chris had recently started the Social Media Club, and was looking for its first big project.

To support this effort, Chris created a New Media Release Google discussion group, and solicited participation in the New Media Release Working Group. He gets immediate agency, wire service, marketing and media volunteers. Work gets started on building a spec based on the microformat.

July
Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson post their first NMRCast (separate from their regular For Immediate Release podcast) in support of this effort. The archive of reports since July is available online–this is a great place to get more recent history and information.

August
Companies try to figure this thing out. Novell issued a painfully long social media press release–I think I saw my grandmother quoted in there somewhere–demonstrating again that it’s not the format that counts, it is the content (BTW, they used PR Newswire’s MultiVu service). Lee National Denim Day was supported by a traditional press release format enhanced with PDF and several podcast and streaming options, plus the classic del.icio.us, Digg and other bookmarking services (they used Vocus’ PRWeb service).

September
By September, some folks were already reporting successes with their new media releases, despite the inherent difficulties.

Also in September, Business Wire celebrated the 100th anniversary of the press release in a “sloppily written” press release that actually claims to be celebrating the 100th anniversary of public releations (some would argue that PR existed before the press release, and would in fact continue to exist after the press release dies).

September also saw a spark in the eyes of the XPRL beast. XPRL was an effort similar to the social media press release that was started way back in 2001. Long dormant, the social media revolution has injected some life into this group.

And speaking of acronyms, CFO.com reported:

On September 29, the SEC announced a $54 million investment to update its 20-year-old EDGAR database of corporate regulatory filings and turn it into an interactive database that uses XBRL.

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is another XML-based standard, this one focused on financial reporting. According to Bowne Financial Print, “With XBRL, financial facts, whether numeric or narrative can be tagged in such a way that computers can ‘understand’ more about those facts than would otherwise be possible.”

October
One interesting development came in october with very little fanfare: PRXBuilder–billed as the first social media press release application. Certainly interesting, definitely frustrating, but hopefully a glimpse into what is possible with social media.

But of course the big press release news in October was Jonathan Schwartz’s empassioned plea to the SEC. The core of his argument:

To date, the SEC has not taken the position that the Regulation’s “widespread dissemination” requirement can be satisfied through disclosure through the web-postings alone. While that may have been a pragmatic approach in 2000, we believe that the proliferation of the Internet supports a new policy that online communications fully satisfy Regulation FD’s broad distribution requirement.

Sounds good, right? Well, it got better in November…

November
There were two big developments in November. Firstly, the New Release Working Group, which I’m proud to be a part of, issued its draft specification.

Secondly, the SEC’s Cox wrote back to Jonathan, and actually posted his response on Jonathan’s blog!

What did Chairman Cox have to say? Well his chief concern was “whether there exist effective means to guarantee that a corporation uses its website in ways that assure broad non-exclusionary access.” He also expressed concerns about how exactly Fair Disclosure can be assured, measured and enforced (by the SEC of course). I’ll address these concerns, and paint my vision for the far-flung future, in my next post.

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