Today Steve Rubel unveils Edelman’s take on the social news release, Storycrafter (note lots and lots of others are doing similar work). I like it. I’d rather get something like this than an old fashioned press release. But two quick thoughts:

(1) Regardless of the format, the key with press releases IMO is to produce very few of them. If you are putting out pointless press release every day reporters are going to tune you out no matter how cool or evolved your format. It’s about interesting content more than format.

(2) Why not just release your news on your blog? That’s what we do for ourselves. When you get down to it that is basically what Edelman is doing. They have cleverly deconstructed the content of the press release and added a bunch of features common on blogs. And that’s it basically.

Update: Here is a link to a competing service, PRX Builder, and to Phil Gomes’ post about the Edelman product.  SHIFT Communications developed a template for the social news release previously.