Press Release Feeds Through theWeblogWire

Pete Cashmore highlights a just-launched company called theWeblogWire that attempts to set up a more efficient and effective distribution method for getting press releases to bloggers:

The Weblog Wire allows companies to submit press releases, and bloggers to subscribe to these releases via RSS. Submitting a press release costs $99, or $149.99 if you want The Weblog Wire to write it for you. They also charge $100/hour for consulting services related to company blogs. But because processing a press release takes no effort, I’d drop the price to virtually zero and make it up on volume.

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The Weblog Wire could provide one point of entry, rather than hundreds – but only if enough bloggers subscribed to the feeds. That could lead to a serious chicken-and-egg problem – The Weblog Wire might want to offer free press releases until they gain traction, and contact some key bloggers to make sure they’re subscribed.

On the surface, Pete’s suggestions sounds like a great way to build traffic and audience.  Unfortunately, the price theWeblogWire charges serves not only as a revenue stream, but also as a quality control.  If the service were free (or even just very inexpensive) there would be much more junk flowing through.  Thus making it less useful to subscribe to the feeds.

So theWeblogWire definitely faces a challenge here that must be overcome to be successful, but making press release distribution free isn’t the answer.