Now that's a very big tea cup…

Tom Murphy

You turn your RSS reader off for a day and all hell breaks loose.

What’s it this time you might ask? Well now it’s the social press release… well no it’s not actually the social press release.  It looks like it’s the social press release but when you scratch a little, pull back the band-aid then it’s more a (nother) swipe at the PR dweebs.

I’ll try and explain.

Stowe Boyd kicks things off with a post following a Third Thursday event in San Francisco.  He criticizes the idea of a social media press release asking why PRs won’t just use blogs, he believes that we (that’s all us PR twits) are misusing the term social media.  We shouldn’t use the term “audience”.. there’s more, read it, I’m bored already. [Robert then weighs in with his broad PR expertise].

You guys, you make me laugh.

[There’s a wide range of discussion: Brian Solis, Mike Manuel, Chris Heuer, Shel Holtz, Stuart Bruce ]

I don’t intend to undertake a long, detailed and insightful defence of the social media press release because 1) I’d be too bored to hit the post button and 2) The guys above do a fine job of addressing Stowe’s issue.

Stowe underscores his deep understanding of the issue and his position as a balanced observer of the “new new” media with his follow up post:

“Social Media and Public Relations: The Press Release is Dead”

Fantastic stuff, straight from page two (or should that be permalink two) of the “new new” media online wiki (handbook is soooo Web 1.0) and I quote:

Everything that we know from before is dead.  This should be the first line of offence and defence against Neanderthals, who dare to question your opinions or even try and suggest that some off-line things may not actually be swept away by the all knowing, all seeing, all transforming power of the InterWeb.

Whatever. 

I think I’ll sit this dance out and spend the time thinking about all the AUDIENCES I’m going to fax this week. 

Really and truly.  Is there room for more than one ego in those Web 2.0 bubbles?

Excuse the (very un-Web 2.0) religous reference, but is the use of the term “audience” really a sin? Is it a cardinal sin or just a venial sin?

We should all heed the knowledge of the blogger who invokes that most powerful of all Web 2.0 commands: “Kill the press release.  We don’t need the press release anymore, just put it on a blog.”

Yes, I’ll go and tell the NYSE right now sir.

I don’t know how many times I’ve invoked this quote, but given I’m breaking all the Web 2.0 rules, I’ll break another and I’ll even modernize it:

It’s better to not type something, format it, hit “publish” and appear ill-informed than to hit publish and remove all doubt.

Web 1.0 rocks.

Anyway to cheer you up check out this video via Serge.