Here’s a link to the site: Post your releases here.

Be sure to check back and let me know what you think of it!

Site note — Arun also says he’s working on a contest to help promote the site, so be sure to keep an eye out for that!

Check out the post here: Top 5 Ways to Use RSS Creatively

Now I just need to convert him over to the world of podcasting.  … sigh …  My work is never done!

To check it out, go to Review of Podcasts.

By the way, the next episode of the Fighting Back Podcast is due out late next week. Don’t miss an episode — subscribe via the Fighting Back Podcast Feed or on iTunes.

If you’re savvy about code, you can do what I did, which is take an existing WordPress theme and change it to suit your needs. I used Mistylook 3.2 and changed nearly everything except the major overall structure. But, not everyone has the time or inclination to do that. On the other hand, you don’t want to use a standard template and have your blog look like everyone else’s … do you?

Enter the WordPress Theme Generator. Developed by Yvo Schaap, it allows you to pick the colors, layout, and look by using a fairly easy to use interface. When you’re done, it spits out the theme. Plug it into WordPress, and you’re ready to go.

If anyone has used this to build a fully operational blog, let me know. From everything I could see, the implementation of the generator was sound, but I didn’t go through the whole process. It’s a great idea.

So, the Fighting Back Podcast is now hosted on RapidFeeds. It’s a great service that so far is working like a charm. It includes everything I mentioned above, plus they do stats for you. Podcasters, almost as a rule, are stat junkies.

So, why would you need to use a feed generation service? My main reason is to have a nice, clean feed. The Fighting Back Podcast is hosted on a WordPress blog, which takes care of feed generation for you. However, in each episode blog post I include a whole bunch of stuff for SEO keyword purposes. I want the feed to be much easier to read. Thus … a hosted feed is the way to go for me.

As with my review of online RSS feed creation sites review, I have to say a quick word about Feedburner. They don’t generate feeds (although why they don’t offer that, I have no idea) but they host them extremely well. They ability to have your feed HTML-compatible is huge for people who don’t quite get RSS yet. Plus, they offer quite a few ways to promote your feed. I recommend checking them out once you have a feed up and running.

From the Freelance Switch blog:
Top Ten Signs You May Be Charging Too Little

I don’t think any of these apply to me, fortunately!

Most blogging software makes it very easy to make feeds available for your readers. The problem, however, is that creating a feed for a regular website involves dealing with code. I wanted to make a feed for the EndGame Public Relations News page, which features news releases I’ve written for my clients. I can write the code, but I really don’t want to. So, I set out looking for a site that would do everything for me and not charge anything. Below is a review of the best and worst (in no particular order) of the free services I found using my news page as a test site. At the bottom I give my “Best Bets“. There are probably others that I missed. Feel free to tell me about them in comments!

IceRocket
In addition to being a blog search engine, Icerocket offes a free online RSS builder. I actually used this service for quite a while. It’s simple to set up and offers a number of features, such as adding your logo to the feed and including a link for comments. There’s no option to import an existing feed or automatically build a feed. The big problem I’ve had with IceRocket is that over the last couple of weeks the site has gone down a few times for long periods.

Ponyfish
Another online business with a very odd name, this site offers a system that automatically builds an RSS feed or you. Just enter the page from which you want to build, click on the links you want to include, and presto .. RSS feed. You don’t have to sign up to create a simple feed that doesn’t include descriptions. However, if you don’t register your feed will only update every eight hours. If you sign up for a free account your feed will update every four hours. The main problem I have is that you’re unable to add link descriptions with a free account. They do have paid options that allow you to add descriptions and edit link titles. It also doesn’t appear to be possible to add a logo to your feed.

Feedity
This service is very similar to Ponyfish, except that it’s even easier to use. There’s no option to sign up for an account, free or not. You just enter the URL of the website with elements for your feed, and Feedity automatically pulls out the content. I’m not sure how it works, to be honest, but it worked perfectly with my test page. It even skipped the link to my news archives that was right below the news release list. Feedity also claims to update your feed with new content in near real time. Unfortunately, like Ponyfish, it has the downside of not adding link descriptions or a logo in the feed.

RSSPad
This service from PRWeb has some promise. Like IceRocket, you manually enter links and descriptions to create your feed. If you have an existing feed, you can import it. RSSPad is still in beta, which means you’ll find some issues now and then. I found a problem with the items in a feed I imported not being ordered correctly, but after I emailed customer service they fixed it quickly and courteously. Since then I haven’t had any problems. The huge benefit of this service is that your feed is listed on RSSPad’s “Recent Feeds” page, and whenever you update your feed it jumps to the top. The Google Pagerank on that page is five, which means Google has decided it’s a fairly important page and will be back to index it frequently. As a result, my feed is now ranking higher than the EndGame Public Relations home page for some of my key searches!

RSSpect
If you don’t mind a little code insertion, RSSPect seems like a decent service. The system involves inserting code on your website to indicate item titles, descriptions, and so on. RSSpect’s software then reads the code and builds your feed on it. This allows you to include everything you want to include, but it seems time consuming to me. I didn’t go through the process of including the markups, so I don’t know for sure how well the service works.

FeedYes
FeedYes works in a similar way to Ponyfish. You enter your webpage URL and click the items you want to include. The problem I had was that it didn’t work as WELL as Ponyfish. FeedYes missed several items on my news page that I would have preferred to include, and there didn’t appear to be a way to fix the error.

Feedburner
Feedburner doesn’t actually have an RSS generator, although why is beyond me. It seems they’d be very well served to create one or buy someone like Ponyfish. What Feedburner does very well is HOST your feed. You sign up, enter the URL of your existing feed, and you’re ready to go. When I first learned about the service, I didn’t understand the point. If I have a feed already, why do I need a host? The answer is that Feedburner allows you to include many, many extras on your feed, and they help you promote it. No matter who you use to build your feed, I recommend hosting at Feedburner. I currently host four feed there.

So, who is the best? Here are the Media Relations & SEO PR Blog Best Bets:

Best Overall RSS Feed Generation Site: The SEO benefits put RSSPad over the top. I wasn’t happy with the buggy feed item ordering, but that concern was eased by a quick response by customer service. If you don’t want to risk dealing with a site that’s in beta, I recommend IceRocket.

Best “Quick and Easy” Feed Generation Site: You can’t beat Feedity’s quick and easy RSS generation. The feeds lack descriptions, but you can create one with a whole mess of feed items in less than a minute. Ponyfish is a very close second in this category.

Happy syndicating!

I think it’s a wonderful idea and I’ll be participating. Here’s an explanation from the site:

Silence can say more than a thousand words.

This day shall unite us all about this unbelievable painful & shocking event and show some respect and love to those who lost their loved ones.

On April 30th 2007, the Blogosphere will hold a One-Day Blog Silence in honor of the victims at Virginia Tech. More then 30 died at the US college massacre.

But it´s not only about them. Many bloggers have responded and asked about all the other victims of our world. All the people who die every day. What about them?

This day can be a symbol of support to all the victims of our world!

All you have to do is spread the word about it and post the graphic on your blog on 30th April 2007. No words and no comments. Just respect, reflect and empathy.

Go to the site, www.onedayblogsilence.com, to get a banner like the one I’m using in this post, and to read more about the idea.

News Release Distribution Review 2010

I read recently that the online news release distribution business is booming, and that certainly explains the explosion in the number of companies jumping into the fray. Generally speaking, online release distribution services take your release, post it on their site, and then distribute it via RSS feed to other sites that use the releases for content. Other services also distribute your release directly to reporters via different means. Communications professionals use online news distribution for many different reasons, but they generally fall into two categories…

1) Media relations professionals want to put the release in front of reporters, via distribution service reporter feeds.
2) SEO PR professionals want to put the release in front of consumers and build backlinks, via distribution service news RSS feeds

So, which is the best place to distribute your news releases to reach the above goals? Below is a review of what I consider the best of the best, both free and paid. Feed free to add your own via comments!

PR Newswire
News feed distribution: $180 and up
Free option: None
PR Newswire is the granddad of the group, starting out more or less as a way to distribute your release directly to reporters via old fashioned newswires. They’re still the best at getting your releases in front of mass numbers of journalists. Releases placed on PRN not only appear online, but also are distributed via a portion of the Associated Press Newswire. PRN also has lists of reporters who receive news on selected industries via email.

Where PR Newswire falls short is search engine optimization. They just don’t seem to understand optimizing online news releases. They will still get you a number of links due to being an industry giant, however, they could be better. An option is available to have PRN optimize your release, but I wouldn’t recommend it. To take advantage you must first purchase their top distribution, which costs a minimum of $680.

PRWeb
News feed distribution: $80 and up
Free option: None
PRWeb was the first release distribution service to fully embrace news release optimization, or at the very least they were the one who promoted it best. Until last fall they had a free option that was outstanding, but it was eliminated shortly after they were purchased by Vocus. These days they have essentially three pricing levels – $80, $120, and $200. Different services are available at the different levels, but all three include some type of news feed distribution. A new product was announced last month that offers distribution via the same Associated Press wire that PR Newswire uses. This “Media Visibility” package includes online distribution as well as the media distribution, and costs $360.

Releases on PRWeb are more fully optimized for search engines and social media than any I’ve found. They include features such as links to social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Technorati, category listings, and a proprietary trackback system. If approved, your release appears on PRWeb’s sister site, eMediawire, which automatically gives you a second backlink. Their stats at the $120 and $200 level are impressive as well. One irritation I do have with them is that at the $80 and $120 pricing levels there is a two day delay before your release is distributed.

PRLeap
News feed distribution: $50 and up
Free option: Available DISCONTINUED
PRLeap essentially wants to be PRWeb. It’s not a bad thing to desire, as PRWeb has been very successful. However, they just don’t seem to get there. Their pricing is good, but my experience is that link building via PRLeap isn’t as affective as PRWeb. One huge advantage they do have is that they have a free option. I do recommend taking advantage of that, as posting is quick and easy. Free releases have reasonably unobtrusive ads placed on them. Anchor text links are available starting at $20, however at that level the release is placed on the PRLeap site, but not distributed via news feeds.

[Edited September 2, 2008: PRLeap discontinued their free option effective the first of this year.  Their paid options are $49, $99, and $149 ... with different options available for each.  I can't believe I missed the elimination of their free option, but it's probably because I haven't used PRLeap for quite a while.  I was actually planning to try it out tomorrow, given my distaste with the changes at PRLog, but if I'm going to pay for a release I'm going to pay for PRWeb.  At this moment, I'm considering a switch over to using 24-7 Press Release (see below) when I'm only planning to post in one place.]

PRLog
News feed distribution: Free
Free option: Available (ads included on releases)
A new entrant into the field, PRLog is quickly making a reputation for a free way to create a quality backlink. My experience with the service is that releases posted on their site are always indexed very high by Google. Recently I had a free PRLog release actually rank above a paid PRLeap release on Google News! My theory on this is that it’s because PRLog has a .org URL instead of the .com you would expect. As you may know, .org addresses are automatically given special consideration by the search engines. Regardless, the site provides outstanding performance for a free service. I haven’t noticed a large number of additional backlinks created by using PRLog, but a top ranking on Google News will do that for itself for many searches.

With every release, PRLog includes links to bookmark on social media sites like Digg and Technorati. They also give you the option of linking to long URLs that include your release title, or non-optimized URLS that are slightly easier to remember. PRLog also allows you to upload a logo or image for your release.

[Updated August 13, 2008: I've posted a couple of releases on PRLog lately, and frankly I'm not liking the direction this service is going.  The site is looking rather "spammy" these days, and they're now accepting job listings in addition to news releases.  Not good.  I'm still thinking about it, but it looks as though PRLog may be losing grip on its "favorite" status.]

Express Press Release Distribution
News feed distribution: Free
Free option: Available
Express Press Release offers free release distribution with no frills and no links included.  They also have $29 distribution that includes link activation and improved placement on the site. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve never used the pay service. However, despite the lack of links I’ve actually found good search results for their free service. Two releases I placed their for my PR firm have popped up for my primary search target for months.

24-7 Press Release
News feed distribution: $45 and up
Free option: Available (ads included on releases)
Like Express Press Release, I have only used the free option on 24-7 Press Release. However, the results have been good. Generally my releases have been indexed on Google News, and some have ended up on the news site Topix. 24-7 is trying to nudge into the PR Newswire world by offering what they call “Mass Media Distribution” for $299 (releases with more than 375 words cost more). This service claims direct distribution to trade publications, as well as 80,000 individual journalists. If anyone has tried this out, let me know how it worked for you!

PR News Now
News feed distribution: Free
Free option: Available (ads included on releases)
I hesitated to include this one because it has the appearance of a spam site, to be honest. However, I’ve used the site and found that my releases there do rank for target searches. Releases posted on their site are littered with ads, and they don’t look terribly professional. But, for SEO purposes, they’re beneficial.

[Update from 2/14/08: I've been meaning to post for a while that you may actually find your PRWeb releases popping up on PR News Now, much to the chagrin of the PRWeb folks.  PR News Now is apparently taking PRWeb feeds and reposting them without attribution and sometimes without even including the links.  I've decided I'm staying away from this service.]

Others:
Wikio: A site built specifically for people to post articles and releases. It’s painfully easy to use.
SearchWarp: More for articles than news releases but, at least with the way I write, it’s not tough to turn a release into something that looks like an article.
I-Newswire: Another site much like PRLog, 24-7 Press Release, and PRLeap. I’ve had fairly good results posting free releases here.

There are many, many, many others. But, which are the best? Here are the Media Relations & SEO PR Blog Best Bets:

For reporter distribution: PR Newswire
Despite being chocked full of news releases, PR Newswire actually has a reputation among journalists as being a good place to find story leads.

For link building: PRWeb
No one beats PRWeb for the number of links generated from one release. Period.

For free release distribution: PRLog
I’ve been extremely impressed with the tools offered by PRLog, and the results I’ve gained by using them. I have a sneaking suspicion they’re going to launch a paid service soon, and I’ll be trying it out.

As I said earlier, I’d love to hear about your success stories using services I didn’t mention. Lay them on me in comments!

The site was launched a couple of years ago by Max Barry, the author of a number of sci-fi political satire novels.

According to the news release (PDF format) published today by Topix…

Topix, the largest news community on the Web, today unveiled a new site that gives its established community of millions the power to find, report and edit local news. Topix’s pioneering platform addresses the pent-up demand for local news in towns and cities across the country where traditional news media alone can’t cover enough of the hyper-local events and issues that matter most to neighbors.

The company is also moving its site from Topix.net to Topix.com. The purchase of the .com domain reportedly cost $1 million.

Under the redesign, the national news on the front page is gone. Instead, you’re invited to enter your zip code so you can see news from your area. Users are now able to submit news under their own zip code via an online form or even via cell phone. Many zip codes will have their own human editor, who will gather news for the page they manage. Zip codes without an editor will be refreshed with local news via RSS feeds from online news sources. Each local news page will have the look and feel of a blog, with newest items up top. Comments on the news can be made on the site’s message boards.

ZDNet’s Donna Bogatin has interesting insight on the reasons for the change, saying Topix CEO Rich Skrenta was concerned that his site was becoming simply an extension of Google. In other words, people would find news on his site via search engine, and when they got to Topix it didn’t look much different than a search engine. He wanted to change that by making the site more unique.

In the end, what this means for media relations and SEO PR professionals is that there’s one more quality place to easily post news releases, and it actually has visitors. I’ve always been a fan of the treatment that Topix has given to my PRWeb and PR Newswire releases, and I’m thrilled that it will be easier to access. I’m concerned, however, that it will end up becoming a repository for crappy news releases. It will be interesting to see how much editing these human editors actually do.

According to Google, you can make us print one, one thousand, or one hundred thousand of your emails … whatever seems reasonable to you.

There are dozens and dozens of sites that allow you to submit and share links now, and most have ridiculous names with periods where they don’t belong. It’s tough for the uninitiated to keep them straight, and frankly it’s tough sometimes for those of us who track this stuff for a living. To have details about this many in one place is invaluable. In fact, I’ve been using Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us, and Ma.gnolia lately, but this article convinced me to look closer at Reddit and StumbleUpon.

Here’s a link to the article.

Enjoy!

No tags for this post.]]> http://www.endgamepr.com/blog/2007/03/19/review-of-the-top-social-media-sites/feed/ 1 http://www.endgamepr.com/blog/2007/02/01/what-not-to-do-in-public-relations/ http://www.endgamepr.com/blog/2007/02/01/what-not-to-do-in-public-relations/#comments Fri, 02 Feb 2007 03:47:55 +0000 Steve Mullen http://endgamepr.com/wordpress/2007/02/01/what-not-to-do-in-public-relations/ I’ve been a devoted fan of another blog for quite some time, and since I just realized it was founded just a few days from the day that EndGame Public Relations was born, I figured I’d take the time to blog about the site.

The Bad Pitch Blog is an incredible resource for media relations professionals like myself. Basically (without going too far into the background of the site) Kevin Dugan and Richard Laermer, who are both experienced and accomplished communications professionals, take the time to blog about examples of putrid attempts at media relations. They give awards to the worst of the worst, and occasionally will even single out GOOD media relations technique that they observe. All PR people need to check themselves sometimes, and this blog is a great reminder of what NOT to do. On top of that, it’s just hysterical what some people think are acceptable PR practices!

As I mentioned, the Bad Pitch Blog is celebrating its first birthday, just like we are here at EndGame PR … so I’m formally sending my congrats to them on a very educational and entertaining site!

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