Po.et Use Case #5: Press Release Distribution

You’re a company with an exciting product release, partnership or new service to announce. How do you make the world care about your news? First, you write a press release. Next, you pay a lot of money to post it on a site that will publish your release with hundreds of similar releases. Finally, you mass email pitch the press release to any journalist contacts you might have and cross your fingers that somebody will find and cover your news. The news distribution process isn’t necessarily broken, but Po.et’s blockchain-based solution for managing digital assets can make it a lot better. The Problem With Press Release Distribution There are a number of problems with the existing process of distributing press releases. The first is how difficult it is to rise above the noise. Several thousand press releases are published each day and they are spread across multiple distribution sites. Journalists — who need to know important news to cover it — usually ignore these sites. Typically, journalists receive a litany of press releases each day through direct email, though most writers will tell you they spend little-to-no time reading them. Under these circumstances, it’s difficult for important news to get the right amount of attention. Press release distribution models can also be expensive. Subscriptions can cost hundreds of dollars — sometimes more than a thousand — to publish a press release with one of the major distribution websites. That’s a large price to pay for publishing content that it is expected to only be read by a few people. Fake press releases are another major problem. There are few safeguards in place to verify that someone submitting a press release on a company’s behalf is actually a representative of that company. Finally, it is difficult to enforce news embargoes using traditional distribution channels. News embargoes are agreements with a journalist to receive a press release ahead of time but avoid writing about it until the news is announced publicly. Journalists occasionally break embargoes either by mistake or in a deliberate effort to land a scoop. When this happens, companies have to scramble to identify the offending journalist and request that the prematurely published news article be taken down. This process usually does not happen quickly enough to prevent the news from reaching a wide audience before the company intended. Po.et’s Press Release Solution Po.et can address all these challenges while providing other advantages. If companies publish press releases on the Po.et network, they gain the following benefits. A Single Decentralized News Source Using Po.et, news can be recorded in a place where journalists can easily find it by searching for items of interest. Instead of having to scour multiple sites or dig through hundreds of emails to pick out relevant news items, writers can find worthy news from a variety of sources directly thanks to the blockchain. Cost-Efficiency Recording a press release on the Po.et network costs virtually nothing. With Po.et, spending thousands of dollars to distribute news will become a thing of the past. In addition, no one will have to pay extra to gain premium news distribution. Because Po.et provides a decentralized content management network that no single party controls, all content registered on the Po.et blockchain has equal visibility. Tracking Usage The Po.et network makes it easy for companies to track who is using their press releases. This is a major improvement over existing distribution channels, which give users little or no ability to determine how many people actually read their press releases or to collect analytics about usage. Identity Enforcement The identity of a company that submits a press release on the Po.et network can be confirmed and recorded immutably on the blockchain. This prevents the dissemination of fake press releases and gives journalists confidence that the news that they cover comes from a legitimate source. Streamlining Press Contacts The Po.et network will offer the additional benefit of making it easy to write applications that can seamlessly connect journalists to press contacts at a company if they want to follow up about a press release. This is a more efficient and reliable approach than existing strategies, which require journalists to follow up manually if they wish to arrange an interview or seek more information after reading a press release. Embargoes The Po.et network will support the creation of applications that can enforce news embargoes. Press releases could be shared ahead of time only with certain journalists, or an application could make the topic of a press release available without revealing the full details of the news until a specified time. In addition, in cases where news is shared under embargo on the Po.et network and a journalist breaks the agreement, the violation would be easy to identify and, therefore, easy to address quickly before a prematurely published story is widely disseminated. Conclusion If you simply read news, rather than help write it, you likely don’t realize how inefficient, costly and confusing the current processes of news distribution can be. You might also think news distribution doesn’t affect you: Think again. The current level of difficulty and cost to disseminate relevant news stories to qualified journalists has created a flawed news system. Specifically, the existing press release distribution channels contribute to what can be seen as a chaotic flood of irrelevant, poorly written and redundant news content. Po.et can change the game by making press release distribution more transparent, efficient and cheaper. By consequence, it will improve the news experience for everyone.