Doing The News Right, And A Cool Dev Tool
Data Driver, the global leader in database-related blogging, serving a constituency of high-quality readers worldwide, and product of 1105 Media Inc., parent company of award-winning publications and Web sites such as Redmond Developer News and Visual Studio Magazine, acknowledged leaders in the Microsoft developer-related media space and universally praised as premier venues for the best tech-related advertisers to reach sophisticated enterprise decision-makers, today announced how not to write a news release.
Sorry, I'm deviating briefly here. I just can't stand it anymore--I'm constantly bombarded with news releases that start out like the above. Don't these guys get it? Who gets past an opening paragraph like that?
Just get to the news, will you? It's not like any self-respecting media outlet is going to use that crap anyway. How can they not notice that that never happens?
What finally brought this to a boil such that I absolutely had to vent is a news release from a company that actually knows how to do it right. It's such a rare gem that it gets some free publicity here (OK, it's also about a newsworthy product that data developers might find interesting).
The company is Alpha Software, and the news release announced Alpha Five Version 10.5. The release (and blog item on the company's site) was titled "What Would the Web Look Like If Everyone Could Build Their Own Web 2.0 Data-Driven Apps?" (instead of, say, "Award-Winning Leader In Web Development Announces Revolutionary New Product"). It's about a tool for do-it-yourself Web devs, though, as the company states, it's for pros, too: "Professional developers will find everything they could wish for in a robust development environment, especially the ability to build Ajax-powered, SQL database-driven Web apps without having to code."
Sounds good to me. You can try it for free and decide for yourselves. Let me know what you think.
Anyway, back to my rant: these guys are different. The release's lead paragraph framed the product in the context of how simplified blogging tools opened up the blogosphere to everyone. The company isn't even mentioned until the fourth paragraph. And the release is chock-full of links pointing to more information--and they go all over the place, not to the company's site.
I checked out other news releases and found one about training classes that actually led with a reference to The Clash's seminal album, London Calling. It links to sites about the band (which happens to be my all-time favorite), the album, Rolling Stone and the list of the top 500 greatest albums. See, you want to click that link and check out the list, don't you? Stuff like that gets your attention.
I really hope these "but-we've-always-done-it-this-way" PR flacks are paying attention. You don't have to be unimaginative, boring, plain-vanilla, run-of-the-mill, mind-bendingly dreary hacks. It's OK to be creative and interesting. Really!
Posted by David Ramel on 07/14/2010