I hope the newswire folks who’ve been watching this story pay attention to what you’re saying, especially the part about them getting the basics right first.

There’s so much talk about “Web 2.0″ and “new media” that it seem people forget that most of us still haven’t quite gotten Web 1.0 right yet.

Maybe what could happen is that companies offer a real-time feed with summaries that matches the newswire feed, then have the full text feed on time delay until such time that the SEC decides that more people end up seeing the disclosures thanks to RSS than through newswires or services with category feeds (which is probably what newswires will become).

Let’s face it, it wasn’t so long ago that newspaper offices were knee deep in fax paper.

Really helpful points. I didn’t think about off-line use as you’ve described.

Since companies aren’t paying anything more for full-text RSS, I assumed that’s what they’d do.

But your comments suggest a strategy for companies to drive adoption of their RSS feeds i.e. issue summary releases with links via the paid wire services and provide full-text only via RSS.

Unfortunately, this introduces a further coordination challenge to the process because the regulators would want the wire release to go out before the RSS feed is updated with full-text so that no one is disadvantaged.

Which brings me back to why don’t we just let companies issue news via RSS and be done with press release wire services for regulated disclosures so that we can take some of the costs out of securities compliance?

RSS gives equal access to everyone who wants it. And it’s free. Can’t beat that.

Of course, if you want customized feeds by industry, keyword or whatever, I’m sure there’d be many services eager to serve them up to you — even in real-time, for free. One just launched in beta, but I’m not done testing it so I won’t say more yet.

However, 25 words would be better than the chocolate-teapot service PRN currently offers, which is headline only, and based on broad category feeds rather than custom selection by keyword or company. Nine times out of ten you have to click just to work out if you care. Not only that, you get the same release duplicated three or four times over if you are subscribed to several related categories. Enabling conversation around the news is all very well, but a little more attention to the core business would be an idea.

That doesn’t make them any less obsolete or redundant.

But I hear you. We’re a long way from that.

As for the XML-based news release concepts in development, they’re worthy initiatives that deserve support. But they shouldn’t and don’t need a proprietary newswire network to distribute them.

I enjoyed the article, but I was waiting for the payoff on the “obsolete” comment and never really got it. For public companies, the press release is still a necessary evil.

The press release will be around at the very least until the SEC deems wire service distribution unnecessary for satisfying disclosure requirement. And even after that point, it will likely live on in corporate News pages and RSS feeds.

Given all that, the social media release tries to put enough structure on the gobbledegook that goes into press releases to allow the consumer to separate the wheat from the chaff.

You hit the nail on the head on at least one aspect: “News releases should be 25 words and a link.”

The social media release standard (http://www.socialmediarelease.org/) that is being worked on is based on this principle. More specifically, it’s based on the structure of hAtom and RSS–but allows for more capabilities (and content).

A properly marked up hRelease announcement (as the microformat standard might ultimately be called) shifts the balance of power from the corporation to the information “consumer,” giving them the power to pull what they want out and discard the rest. If you just want a headline, or a 25-word summary, grab them. If you just want those wonderful canned quotes, grab ‘em. If you want a bullet list of key features, grab it. If you just want the link to the company, grab it.

Thanks for noticing that PR Newswire has been, in your words, “big on this social media thing.” In the same vein as our earlier conversation about the role of the newswire as it relates to disclosure, it is vital to share our opinion on the role of the newswire as not only a distributor of content, but as a vast resource and aggregator of content from tens of thousands of organizations.

Today, people use search engines as a starting point to find content of interest to them – rarely does a person go directly to one given website, simply because they are interested in seeing more things that relate to their needs and interests, not less. It’s the same with a newswire. Someone interested in news about the software industry is not going to go to each individual company’s website to read news releases or sign up for RSS feeds – that would require a lot of time and effort and the possibility of missing important news if you were not aware of a particular company. The newswire, on the other hand, acts as a huge repository of information, and enables news consumers to easily retrieve information that is relevant to them. And that’s what’s happening. The proof is in the numbers – PR Newswire’s public website receives 1.2 million unique visitors a month.

Furthermore, news consumers are rarely interested in only one point of view – they want to read/hear the conversation around the news as much as they want to read/hear the news as soon as it’s available. That’s what http://www.prnewswire.com is focused on – providing a resource of news directly from the organizations issuing it, enabling conversation around that news, and giving our clients a means to keep track of it all.

Lastly, linking from press releases back to an organization’s website is a valid SEO strategy and one we encourage with our own clients. We strongly believe the news release is a starting point and that readers should be encouraged to seek more information from the organizations they are reading about. That’s why we optimize our news releases for better results in search engines, and provide feedback to clients on how the release is being accessed and what actions visitors are taking.

There’s nothing bogus about the social media news release or how the newswires are helping organizations leverage the medium.

Dave