Some companies specialize in distributing press releases for other companies. Since press releases are always free for the recipient, how do the press-release distributors make their money? Since the companies with announcements can always post their press releases to their own web sites or email lists (and probably do), why would they pay an intermediary to do more? What value do the intermediaries add?
Here are few sensible answers from a blog posting yesterday on Outsell Now:
What these companies do is clear today: They charge companies (and non-profits) $225 and up for issuing releases. They'll deliver those releases right away, of course. It's the increasing list of value-added services that is driving the business and attempting to ward off Web 2.0 direct-distribution disintermediation, like RSS. Value-added means many things, including: [1] targeting releases within industries, to relevant analysts and journalists; [2] translating into any relevant language globally; [3] including video and multimedia; [4] tracking response and measuring impact.
Comment. I was struck by the analogy between publishing journals and distributing press releases. There are clearly similarities and differences. Without overemphasizing the similarities or oversimplifying journal publishing, I wonder how far the lessons from press-release distribution carry over to journal publishing, esp. for journals that want to offer OA to the basic full-text peer-reviewed articles and earn revenue from other layers of added value.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/20/2006 09:54:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
