re: I’d also like to see the comments moved out of the main body of the release

My apologies – my brain was still working in French when I translated the essence of the blog post.

Comments should definitely remain on the main page – I was actually referring to quotes, here .. as in the Shel Holtz quote. I would have liked to have had the option of placing it off to the side.

http://www.prblogger.com/2008/02/smnr-features-comparison/

Michelle – you raise a number of good points. I particularly agree with you about the need for photo captions, and this is something we will work to include as soon as possible.

As far as the comments on the release go, we felt that this was a necessary step in the evolution of the news release. By including comments on the body (rather than somewhere else, as others have done) we are allowing the conversation to take happen in the same place as the news that is happening. This is a benefit for the organization issuing the release, as they get to respond in an official capacity directly and have it visible to other visitors. In recognizing that the comments feature isn’t for everyone, we have made it an opt-in feature.

I understand your concern about the 76 logo being at the bottom of the page. However, we feel that it is clearly separated from the rest of the content via the horizontal line. Similarly, the logo for our Social Media Release is separated from the page content at the top by another horizontal line.

The Related Content tool exists on the French version, and should be there. If you continue to have problems with it displaying (or if anyone else does!) let me know.

If you’ve got any further questions, feel free to get in touch with me by email or, hey, even comment on the release.

Disclosure done!

Blogged in French on this subject – basically, I see this as evolution rather than revolution, which is fine. The added features are nice (and reflect most of the change requests made by Third Tuesday Montreal members when we asked them to comment on our May release announcing our Shel Holtz event). So comments, tags, all good. I hadn’t noticed the RSS feed, which they had also requested, so thanks for pointing that out.

I have a few reservations about the look and feel of it – mostly because of the jumble of fonts and font sizes on the page. I’d also like to see the comments moved out of the main body of the release and sense that the links to bios and blogs (see our release) are too discreet to be noticed.

Details like photo captions should be addressed. I’d like to know, at a glance, which photo is Mme Guillot and which is Ms McGill-Davidson. I imagine journalists, doubly so.

The Related Content tool is very nice, but apparently only available in English … if it doesn’t exist already for the French, it would be nice to see it follow quickly. I’d also like to be able to link back to the incoming links on Technorati.

Maybe you can answer a question I have : is the 76 design logo at the bottom of each press release going to be standard going forward? With all due (and sincere) respect to Joe and Terry, I don’t see PR agencies doing handstands over seeing a competitor’s logo at the bottom of their client’s press releases.

It’ll be interesting to see if there will be any market (or should I say Marketwire) reaction to this announcement.

Link to my post, should anyone care to read the original French text as opposed to this summary : http://eminencegrisemontreal.blogspot.com/2008/08/cnw-lvolution-du-communiqu-de-presse.html