[ubuntu-us] News Wire Services

[Grant Bowman]

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 11:17 PM, Grant Bowman <grantbow at gmail.com> wrote:
> Did the Canonical press releases regarding Jaunty [1] get distributed
> over PR Newswire or Business Wire in the US?
>
> Thanks,
>
> --
> -- Grant Bowman                                   <grantbow at gmail.com>
> -- California LoCo
>
>
> [1] desktop: http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-9.04-desktop
>    netbook: http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-9.04-unr
>    server: http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-9.04-server


I'll take the silence as a negative answer.  I've done some checking.

Background:

In the US there are specialist wire services specializing in just press
releases, specifically PR Newswire and Business Wire.  One can pay to
get a press release sent on these.  However distribution doesn't mean
that stories are "picked up".  Media organizations may publish/run it
or they might cut it up and run only a portion.

There are also specialized wire services for feature stories: AP, UPI
and Reuters.  These have content written by newspaper reporters and
journalists who work for those news wire organizations.  It is more
difficult to get something sent across these wire services as there is
little direct control but I think most of these journalists have
access to the press release wires.

Impact:

I feel distributing the press releases in the US is an important step
in reaching all US (perhaps wider) press outlets and raising Ubuntu's
exposure.  More than Red Hat or SuSE Enterprise Linux is being used in
the US though it's hard for average journalists to tell if only Red
Hat, Fedora & Novell are sending press releases.  The cost to
distribute a press release via the PR Newswire or Business Wire is a
few hundred dollars per press release depending on exactly how it's
distributed.  Surely the impact of this could be widely leveraged by
all LoCos in the US and beyond.

Are there any further thoughts on how to make this happen for Karmic?

--
-- Grant Bowman                                   <grantbow at gmail.com>
-- California LoCo