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Originally written solely for the news media (“the press”), press releases (aka news releases) today regularly appear on the Internet for anyone to read. As a result, the audience they’re written for include consumers online, search engines, bloggers, and retweeters, as well as traditional journalists. And they consist of not only text, but links, Infographics, charts, photos, audio, and video. At more than 100 years old, the press release continues to be a useful tool in marketing communications.

See our previous blogpost, “Social Media News Release Template Step-by-Step Guide.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you maximize the communication of your brand’s content through news releases and electronic press kits.

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Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Floatingsheep.org (@floating_sheep), a website that maps the geographies of user-generated online content, has created the pdf booklet “Geographies of the World’s Knowledge,” a joint venture between Convoco and the Oxford Internet Institute (@oiioxford). Through creative maps, it visualizes the distribution of the world’s knowledge through 10 categories

1.    Literacy and Gender

2.    Internet Penetration

3.    The World’s Newspapers

4.    The Location of Academic Knowledge

5.    Academic Knowledge and Language

6.    Academic Knowledge and Publishers

7.    Mapping Flickr

8.    The Distribution of all Wikipedia Articles

9.    Time-series of the Distribution of Biographies on Wikipedia over the Last Five Centuries

10. User-generated Content in Google

Data, evaluated in an unprecedented way, shows the current distribution of knowledge in the different parts of the globe. Some of the implications of this are surprising, others are worrying. The maps visualize where the foci of knowledge — and, thus, the forces of innovation and economic growth — are located. Thanks to this scientific visualization the most important factors involved can be grasped at a glance.

The booklet is also available in interactive format for iPads.

Consider how this information should influence your publishing strategy.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you plan, execute, and analyze market research for your brand.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.

Sally Falkow (@sallyfalkow), president of PRESSfeed (@PRESSfeed) says journalists look for multimedia content to help them report a story. She offers 15 steps to crafting a successful social media news release:

·         Write a short, concise headline....

·         Add a main image that tells the story....

·         Craft the lead paragraph with the news angle and the 5Ws....

·         List the core news facts in the release in bullet points....

·         Write the rest of the release in narrative form....

·         Link to relevant analyst coverage....

·         Add approved quotes from the main players in the release....

·         Make the release available in an RSS news feed....

·         Add more images, so that there is a choice for bloggers and journalists....

·         If possible, add a short video....

·         Add any other supporting material: charts, slide decks, pdfs, Infographics or whitepapers....

·         Tag all the content with the keywords that will make it easy to find in search or social sites....

·         Add the About Us boilerplate....

·         Include a contact person – a real person....

·         Add icons that connect to all social content for the company....

Read this in full.

Get the above Infographic.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help plan your brand’s public relations and social media news strategy.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Alexandria, VA has moved up one level this year to first place in Amazon.com’s (@amazon) annual list of the Most Well-Read Cities in America. The ranking was determined by compiling sales data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle (@AmazonKindle) format since June 1, 2011, on a per capita basis in cities with more than 100,000 residents. The Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities are:

1.   Alexandria, VA               11.  Pittsburgh, PA

2.   Cambridge, MA             12.  Knoxville, TN

3.   Berkeley, CA                  13.  Seattle, WA

4.   Ann Arbor, MI                  14.  Orlando, FL

5.   Boulder, CO                    15.  Columbia, SC

6.   Miami, FL                        16.  Bellevue, WA

7.   Arlington, VA                   17.  Cincinnati, OH

8.   Gainesville, FL                18.  St. Louis, MO

9.   Washington, DC             19.  Atlanta, GA

10. Salt Lake City, UT          20.  Richmond, VA

Read the news release in full.

See last year’s listing.

The above list differs from the one compiled by Central Connecticut State University (@CCSUToday) which names Washington, DC number one. Here’s the top ten list:

1.  Washington, DC               6.   Pittsburgh, PA

2.  Seattle, WA                      7.   Cincinnati, OH

3.  Minneapolis, MN              8.   St. Louis, MO

4.  Atlanta, GA                       9.   San Francisco, CA

5.  Boston, MA                     10. Denver, CO

Read this in full.

See last year's listing.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you reach readers.

And if you love books like we do, be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

This video ad for The Guardian (@guardian) uses the famous fairy tale of “Three Little Pigs” to paint a 21st century picture of open journalism, imagining how the story might be covered in print and online. Follow the story from the paper's front page headline, through a social media discussion and finally to an unexpected conclusion.

In contrast, The New York Times (@nytimes) has created 4 videos that promote the rich experience users get when using its website.

See all The New York Times video ads.

Of the two styles above, which is the most effective? Do they properly reflect each brand message? Does each have viral potential? 

Bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Two-thirds of the American public says religion coverage is too sensationalized in the news media — a view held by less than 30% of reporters, according to the results of a first-of-its-kind survey of both reporters and the audiences they serve by the Knight Program in Media and Religion at the University of Southern California (@USCedu) and the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron (@uakron).

Less than one-fifth of journalists, or 18.9%, say they’re “very knowledgeable” about religion. Most reporters in that minority say they’re mainly familiar with their own religious traditions, not the wider array of faiths and practices, the survey showed.

“News organizations are rightly worried about creating smart business plans and developing cutting-edge technology. But they’re overlooking their most basic resource: knowledgeable reporters,” said Diane Winston (@dianewinston), Knight (@knightfdn) Chair in Media and Religion at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism (@USCAnnenberg). “News consumers want more reporting on authentic religious experience and a lot less on polarizing religious politics. But reporters can’t do that if all they know about religion is what they hear in church or — ironically — what they read in the news.”

·         A majority of both the public and reporters agree the news media “does a poor job of explaining religion in society,” with 57.1% and 51.8% agreeing, respectively.

·         Both the public and reporters rank TV news lowest in the quality and quantity of religion coverage compared to other media with 28.1% of the public and 8% of reporters responding that broadcast news provides “good” religion coverage.

·         The American public sees religion in starkly polarized terms. Nearly half, or 43.6% believes religion is a source of conflict in the world, while a narrow majority, 52.6%, sees it as a fount of good. Most reporters, 56.1%, consider religion to be a mixed bag, offering both benefits and drawbacks for society. But only 3.8% of the general public shares this more circumspect angle on religion.

·         Not surprisingly, then, most reporters believe their audiences want personality-driven religion news related to specific institutions and events. But despite the aforementioned polarization, 69.7% of Americans say they’re interested in more complex coverage that looks at religious experiences and spiritual practice.

·         A strong majority of the public, 62.5%, says religion coverage is important to them, but nearly one-third of the rapidly growing cohort of those with no religious affiliation say they aren’t interested in religion coverage.

·         Christians from ethnic minorities constitute over a third of news consumers who say they’re generally very interested in the news and have a particular interest in religion. In contrast, white evangelical Protestants tend to care specifically about religion news, but less about the news in general.

Read this in full.

Read the survey results in full.

Also see online journalism resources, such as Religion News Service (@ReligionNewsNow) and the Religion Newswriters Association‘s (@ReligionReport) ReligionLink, Religion Stylebook, and Reporting on Religion: A Primer on Journalism’s Best Beat.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you plan your strategy to communicate your brand’s message in the most effective way.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research and the Religion News tabs.

Schools.com (@schoolsEDU) has created the above Infographic to show that nearly half of all Americans get some form of local news on a mobile device, and 46% of people get their news online at least 3 times a week. Online news sources officially surpassed print newspapers in ad revenue in 2010. Thanks to social media, we're getting news as it happens — sometimes even before news organizations have a chance to report it.

Also see our previous blogpost, "Infographic: Pew's State of the News Media 2012."

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Religion News tab.

From Kottke.org (@Kottke) comes word that the Internet Archive (@internetarchive) is hosting a copy of the American Specimen Book of Type Styles put out by the American Type Founders Company in 1912. It’s an elegant 1300-page book showing 100s of typefaces and their possible use cases, as well as all the equipment, tools, and furniture of the printing trade at the turn of the 20^th century.

See this in full.

There's also a 1910 copy of what is basically the German version of the ATF book.

Also see our previous blogpost, “Font Pain and Poetry: So Much Depends on a Curve.”

If you’re a lover of all things related to books like we (@smrsault) are, be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

The Pew Research Center’s (@pewresearch) Project for Excellence in Journalism (@PEJPew) summarizes its State of the News Media 2012 report in this Infographic.

TV is still a strong news source, but digital is the growth area, with tablets the fastest-growing platform. Social media is a fair source of news recommendations, though news consumers prefer to find stories themselves, and direct from sources like CNN.com, newspaper, and network sites. Among the findings:

·         23% of U.S. adults get news from two devices

·         44% own a smart phone, and 18% own a tablet computer

·         70% get their news from a desktop computer, and 56% from tablets

·         64% of those employed full time own a tablet computer

·         Twitter is more highly regarded than Facebook as a source of news story recommendations.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you understand the sea-changes occurring in media and publishing, and how they affect your brand.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

In this article, senior writer and book critic for The New York Times (@nytimesbooks), Dwight Garner (@DwightGarner), spotlights Kindle Singles (submission policy): “works of long-form journalism (‘well researched, well argued, and well illustrated between 5,000 and 30,000 words’) that seek out that sweet spot between magazine articles and hardcover books. Amazon calls them ‘compelling ideas expressed at their natural length.’” Garner calls them “boutique mini-books” that may create a new genre: “long enough for genuine complexity, short enough to avoid adding journalistic starches and fillers.”

Amazon hardly has a monopoly on this novella-length form. Digital publishers like Byliner (@TheByliner) and The Atavist (@theatavist) are commissioning articles of this length that can be purchased and read on any e-reader, or on laptops or phones.

...Amazon offers 70% of the royalties to its Singles authors....So far Amazon has issued more than 160 Singles, at a rate of 3 per week....Barnes & Noble offers similar material in its Nook Snaps series, Apple has Quick Reads  on its iBookstore, and Kobo has Short Reads....

Read this in full.

See our previous blogposts, “Ebooks are the New Pamphlets” and "In the Year of the Ebook, 5 Lessons From  — and For  — News Organizations."

Also see paidContent’s (@paidContent) "E-Singles: ‘Journalism’s Extraordinary Challenges In An Entirely New Place’" and “Guide to E-singles”).

In keeping with the idea of short-form books or long-form articles (however you look at it), Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) has launched Christianity Today Essentials, a new series of “natural length ebooks,” described by editor-in-chief David Neff (@dneff) as content “longer than a longish magazine article, yet significantly shorter than the typical print book.” He says, “The format allows you, the reader, to go deeper and learn more than you could from a magazine article, without committing the time or money demanded by a full-length book.”

Leadership Network (@leadnet) is beginning a new series of “natural length experiences” under the brand Leadia (@leadiatalk). “Each piece is limited to 10,000 words and has live links to audio, video, and websites.” A Leadia app is available for iPhones and iPads.

And Patheos.com (@Patheos) has started Patheos Press, a “publisher of original ebooks.”

Capturing long-form content online is another aspect of this trend. Services such as Longreads (@longreads), Longform (@longform), and The Browser (@TheBrowser) help readers save and organize in-depth material on the Web.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you successfully navigate the world of digital publishing.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially see the list of self-publishers in the Publishers tab.