Welcome to the new PR.

In the old, pre-Web 2.0 world, conventional wisdom held that it was necessary "to have significant news before you were allowed to write a press release." No more. The new rule, according to David Meerman Scott, our guest in Episode 19: The New Rules: "Don't just send press releases when `big news' is happening; find good reasons to send them all the time."

These new rules come from David's e-book, "The New Rules of PR," which has just been updated with a second edition. David also has written an upcoming physical book "The New Rules of Marketing & PR," which is due in June 2007.

When I heard about The Washington Post's decision to allow comments on all of its online news stories, I was taken aback.

During my career as a journalist, we were just getting comfortable with the idea of reporters' e-mail addresses being offered to readers. Broadly allowing comments on news stories raises the bar much higher, creating real conversations with readers and raising fascinating possibilities for communicators.

In Episode 14 -- Opening the Newspaper, Jim Brady, Executive Editor of washingtonpost.com, shares some of his thinking about reader comments in a very interesting interview.

Enjoy the podcast!

The growing importance of the press release has been hard to miss by those active in the communications world.

Press releases can now be distributed online with multimedia file attachments, optimized for today's all-important search engines, and made available with tagging, trackbacks and a variety of other Web 2.0 features. The recent $28 million acquisition of online press release distributor PRWeb by Vocus, Inc., a PR software provider, underscores the importance of the modern press release in the overall marketing and communications mix.

In Episode 10 -- Sold! The Modern Press Release, the heads of both companies, PRWeb Founder and President David McInnis and Vocus President and CEO Rick Rudman, talk to us about the transaction, why they did it, and what to expect from them down the road.

Press releases have taken on a life of their own.

When I began in the news business, press releases were simply meant for the press.  If a reporter decided to write about the release, then it was a success.  If not, that was pretty much the end of it.  No more.  Today, press releases can be accessed online through Web sites and search engines.  They can be e-mailed, put onto RSS feeds and complemented with podcasts.  Just name it. 

The real question for communicators is this: What is the proper audience for the press release today?  Episode 5 -- Whose Press Release Is It Anyway? seeks to answer this question.  Our guest is Mick Jolly (3rd from top), Executive Vice President of PRWeb, an online press release service specializing in direct-to-consumer distribution.