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Friday July 11, 2003
Catching up with the PR Press Network
New services and established sites bring innovation to UK and global
public relations industry.
Contact: Tracey Hopkin
PR Press Network, owner/operator
mailto:tracey@prpn.com
http://www.prpn.com
It’s been a busy six months for the PR Press Network, the UK’s
newest provider of free tools and services for the public relations
industry.
PR Press Network owner/operator Tracey Hopkin said there have been some
real surprises and high points to date. “And we’re looking
forward to lots more later this year and into 2004,” she added.
“We are in talks with a number of key industry players and hope
to be able to introduce more services before the end of this year. We’re
keeping those under wraps for the time being, but we’re celebrating
and shouting about the successes of our existing free services and plans
for their development.”
Since it’s launch earlier this year, the PR Press Network has introduced
no fewer than nine new services, including the UK PR jobs board prposts.com
(http://www.prposts.com) and industry discussion group prtalk.com (http://www.prtalk.com).
Here Hopkin goes over some of the other events and launches so far.
ClickProfiles
http://www.clickprofiles.co.uk
ClickProfiles was made available to PR Press Network visitors at the
beginning of July 2003 following its 'soft launch'. Like its sister
service newsnext.com, it aims to act as a matchmaker between information
professionals looking to promote business news and UK journalists looking
for feature leads and story ideas. PR professionals post links to their
clients' company profiles along with short synopses, and journalists
then search the database for relevant info.
“Visitors will notice that the database is filling up nicely, and
we’re seeing a lot of interest in our free ‘hosted company
profile’ offer, that allows PR people to file text with us which
is then placed on our site for journalists – and search engines
– to find,” said Hopkin.
ReachRadio
http://www.reachradio.co.uk
The PR Press Network received a remarkable response to its ReachRadio
launch announcement. This new free service for broadcasters will put
them in touch with PR professionals offering radio-friendly guests,
content and prizes. Within a matter of days following the announcement,
radio professionals not only from the UK, but also North America, Asia
and the Middle East had caught wind of the service and registered their
interest. The PR Press Network now plans to roll out a US service by
the beginning of 2004 and hopes to quickly follow with a complementary
service for Asia.
“We’ve got very high hopes for this one,” said Hopkin.
“The interest shown in ReachRadio has been tremendous and we’re
not about to miss out on the opportunity to capitalise on this sooner
rather than later.”
prmailbox.com
http://www.prmailbox.com
Word got around about prmailbox.com - a free web-based email service
aimed at UK PR professionals – even before it’s official launch
and June saw a sudden flurry of interest from US-based PR pros. Their
British counterparts have unknowingly staged something of a comeback
and now there are far more subscribers based in the UK than on the other
side of The Pond.
Meanwhile, the service has also seen its first subscribers based in
mainland Europe and Asia! "We are delighted with the response -
even though we're aiming the service at Brits - and will continue accepting
subscribers no matter where they are based," said Hopkin.
newsnext.com
http://www.newsnext.com
Launched in February 2003, newsnext.com is a free service for journalists
and publicity officers, allowing the former to spot up-and-coming news
stories and the latter to provide information about events through an
independent medium. newsnext.com concentrates on UK events and stories,
although international writers and publicity departments are free to
search and post to the calendar.
“We’re currently encouraging regular newsnext.com users to
post quirky off-diary news leads,” said Hopkin. “It’s
the so-called ‘silly season’ in the UK and regional and national
journalists will no doubt be looking for suitably strange tips and subjects.”
SimpleScout
http://www.simplescout.co.uk
Due to launch mid-to-late 2003, SimpleScout is designed to operate as
simply as its name suggests - emails from photographers and filmmakers
will be submitted to SimpleScout via an online form. These emails will
be vetted to ensure they are genuine enquiries and then forwarded to
for-profit and not-for-profit location agents on the SimpleScout email
mailing list. Location agents can register their interest in SimpleScout
at the web site, and photographers can sign up for the PR Press Network’s
photographers mailing list to ensure they know when the service is launched.
“Even though we can’t name names at this point, I would guess
that we have a majority of the UK’s leading location scouts signed
up to receive emails from filmmakers and photographers once the service
goes live,” explained Hopkin. “These professional scouts will
no doubt service the commercial shoots in their usual, highly professional
manner. And we are happy with the number of public relations and marketing
professionals who have signed up and will be ready to meet non-commercial
AND commercial requirements.”
[end]
About the PR Press Network
The PR Press Network is a provider of free services to the UK media
industry. Launched in May 2003, its first websites were newsnext.com,
prposts.com and prfinder.com. The PR Press Network has more in the pipeline
for the remainder of 2003 and into 2004.
More info about the sites can be found at http://www.prpn.com/sites.html
While the sites and services have a clear UK focus, international users
are encouraged to use the sites and the PR Press Network has plans to
offer its services to a more international audience by the end of 2003.
PR Press Network
http://www.prpn.com
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