solanasaurus.com

In the future there will be no press releases. I thought about this last time I was working on a press release for a friend, doggedly making up fake quotes that would sound good in an article. It’s a stale and outdated format that will surely go out of fashion.

I had this thought confirmed the other day, talking to someone who founded a major web company. He said he always avoided press releases, because it was the perfect way to kill the momentum of any project launch. Once press releases get written, several layers of management get involved – and if the company is big enough so do the lawyers.

I still have wistful memories of the first time I wrote a press release about an activism project in high school that was copied almost verbatim in a Danish newspaper. But it’s definitely time to sound the death knell of the press release. Cool, honest companies just write what they think in their blog, in the voice of the people who work for them. If it’s creative commons licensed, the journalists can still just go ahead and copy it.