As a distribution mechanism, it's been my belief that the press release has made serious gains in recent years.

Now, a report from the research firm Outsell, cited in InformationWeek, confirms this.  The trade magazine reported the following:

"The real headliner in this is that the most used content type among knowledge workers for business purposes has switched to press releases," says Outsell VP and analyst Roger Strouse. Until recently, he says, trade journals had occupied the top spot.

The Outsell report is based on surveys of 7,000 knowledge workers taken from 2004 to the present, InformationWeek reported.  It continued:

Strouse posits several possible explanations for the rising popularity of press releases. "It may be that press releases are easier for people to get their hands on," he says. "It may be that press releases are shorter and pithier. It may be that they're oftentimes free and come right into an RSS reader."

You may recall that in my podcast, Talking Communications with Farrell Kramer, we recently dealt with the power of the press release (Episode 5 -- Whose Press Release Is It Anyway?).  We spoke with Mick Jolly of PRWeb about the many advanced features press releases offer today including search engine optimization (SEO), attached multimedia files, trackbacks, RSS distribution, etc.

It's perhaps not surprising then to see these efforts have begun to bear fruit. 

Also, this new finding does coincide with an apparent erosion in the stature of traditional news organizations.

For communicators, this suggests we should look again at our press release strategies.  Clearly, press releases are not just for reporters, anymore.  We need to begin thinking of them as ways to reach our audiences directly.  This creates many interesting, new possibilities.