Mr. Press Release: A Review

Ever want to take a BusinessWire alternative for a test drive?  When a $9.99 service from Mr. Press Release came across my desk, I could no longer resist.  A colleague had recently explored the ins and outs of no cost wire services (get the free white paper here) and I wondered how a cheap service could compete. Using one of our own corporate releases, we took the plunge.  Here's a run down of the positives and the inconvenient:

The Positives:
- The form was simple and easy to use.
- You can add a logo or other image easily and at no additional cost.
- Visually, the release looked good, nice font and layout at the OfficialWire site (check it out here).
- Your news is indexed in Google News (the holy grail!).
- You can easily delete or edit a filed release. Although, once "payment is received" it gets posted immediately.
- We received two postings and a tweet (Mr. Press Release tweets all of their press releases on Twitter).

The Inconvenient:
- word count limit is 750
- You have to have a gmail account and use Google Checkout.
- The "channels" for distribution are a bit unclear -- we selected "America" (does that mean U.S. or North America?).
- You must have a subtitle. 
- You cannot designate a day or time for your posting (your release gets posted as soon as the payment is received).
- You must plan for a lag that happens from when you submit payment and when the payment is officially received by Mr. Press Release.

IMHO, this service is comparable to some of the free posting sites I've used. The Google News indexing is probably the key differentiator, and for many companies, worth the $9.99 all by itself. Mr. Press Release also offers unlimited press release distribution for $59 a month. This monthly service is a nice option for companies that can't afford traditional wiring fees but that want to keep a relatively active Web presence during the recession.  However, you must be willing to sacrifice the benefits that come with a big name wire service like BusinessWire. Just this month, BusinessWire helped VOXUS get more than 30 release postings and three articles – a stark contrast to the two postings and a tweet we got with Mr. Press Release.

-posted by Lindsay