Marketing Articles About Press Releases Search Results

1. Sony Announces PlayStation Move, Its Wii-Baiting Motion Controller.

   

   Sony gave a brief tech demo of its motion controller at the E3 show last year (and discussed it with us just a few weeks ago), but a lot of the particulars were left unknown. Today, they demonstrated the newly-dubbed PlayStation Move, and released details about accessories, price, and release date. Sony's hoping the Move will attract buyers tempted by the Wii's motion-sensing gaming--but they've got a lot of ground to make up.

   The basics are much like the Nintendo's motion controller, except instead of Wii's motion-sensing bar that sits on top of your TV, the PlayStation Move will use Sony's PlayStation Eye camera. Other than that, the Move is also a remote-control-like controller that can be attached to a side-controller for two-handed play. But whereas Nintendo's Wiimote had to be attached to its Nunchuck sub-controller, the Move connects wirelessly via a little lightbulb-shaped adapter (which, thankfully, looks more like a microphone than, well, something less savory). For some games, like a swordfighting game, you'll actually need two separate controllers--and everything, including the sub-controller, will almost certainly be sold individually.

   

   The use of the PS Eye is interesting; it's definitely an advantage over the Wii's sensor bar, since it can use augmented reality to add graphics to whatever you're doing, onscreen. Instead of just pretending you're holding a tennis racquet, you can see yourself onscreen holding one, which is pretty cool.

   

   But beyond augmented reality, it's not clear that Sony's doing much to dispel the notion that they're just releasing a Wiimote-like accessory. Compared to Microsoft's Project Natal for Xbox 360, which forgoes the controller entirely for a system that maps your body and can respond to individual limbs or even other objects, Sony's doing very little innovating here. Gizmodo tried out the Move and found that it's slightly more responsive than Nintendo's Wii MotionPlus, and of course the PS3 is a far more powerful console than the Wii, but that it was mostly underwhelming. We've seen this before--and a "me too" product may not be enough to drag Sony out of third place in the current-gen console wars.

   The Move will be sold in a few configurations, including a standalone controller; a package with a PS Eye, Move controller, and a game; and a package with an Eye, Move, game, and a PS3 console. The only price we have for now is that the Eye, Move, and game combination will fall under $100. Sony is aiming for a fall 2010 launch window.

   [youtube H9o9fRsK59c]

   [Sony]

   
   

   
   (03/11/10 09:00 AM)

2. OK Go Ditches Label Over YouTube Embedding Rights.

   

   How many times does a band have to take the music video world by storm before its record label gets that its members might know a little something about music videos? We may never find out, because OK Go, the band in question, has just ditched EMI, the record label in question, largely due to that very problem.

   OK Go rocketed up through the indie rock world in large measure due to the band's brilliant, lo-fi music videos, which have spread like wildfire on YouTube. But EMI, in a misguided attempt to wring every penny out of the band's success, decided to block embedding on the YouTube videos--meaning the videos were unable to disseminate out through music and pop culture blogs, news sites, and personal blogs the way they did before the restriction. And that's not a minor detail: the band saw a 90% drop in views when that restriction went into effect. As in, 100,000 views one day, 10,000 views the next.

   OK Go isn't a band with huge hit radio singles; they're a journeyman power pop act that puts out reliably excellent, not blockbuster, albums. Music videos are the band's way of making themselves buzzworthy, and it works: their homemade videos have achieved a level of popularity nobody could have predicted. So when the label makes their videos less popular, it means, in no uncertain terms, that less people out there know about OK Go, which means less people can buy albums and tickets for the hard-touring band's shows.

   It's a ridiculous decision from the label, and the band was never shy about voicing discontent, even in the most public way possible. Singer Damian Kulash wrote an op-ed that appeared in The New York Times, a letter to his fans that appeared, among other places, in Gizmodo, and the issue came up in just about every interview the band gave. Now, the band has taken the final step: leaving EMI, and forming their own Paracadute Recordings label to release future (and a re-released version of the current Of the Blue Colour of the Sky) music.

   [youtube qybUFnY7Y8w]

   The very first change? The band's explosively popular (and completely mesmerizing) Rube Goldberg-gone-berserk "This Too Shall Pass" is now embeddable. And the band, which despite a Grammy award has never been a huge seller, is seeing results: since the videos have become embeddable, digital album sales tripled and digital tracks sales have jumped more than sevenfold.

   In a press release from the band, Kulash makes it clear that the choice, if not the actual act, to split was an easy one:

   "We'd like to thank the people who have worked so hard on our behalf," said OK Go singer Damian Kulash, who will discuss the band's departure from the label on NPR's "All Things Considered" today. "And we'd like to thank our fans for making this choice an easy one for us."

   It's not totally clear if this means every OK Go video will be made embeddable--EMI may still own the rights to those videos, so the famous treadmill video for "Here It Goes Again" as well as the band's other videos are still blocked from embedding. But at the very least, this means the next huge OK Go smash video will be open for all to see.

   [OK Go]

   
   

   
   (03/11/10 09:00 AM)

3. Today in Most Innovative Companies.

   News of note from our Most Innovative Companies, including Apple, IBM, and Samsung.

   

   Apple: If the iPhone's market share wasn't enough, even Steve Jobs' legal team is scaring away potential competitors now. Since Apple filed suit against HTC over alleged patent-infringment, analysts say that "top-tier smartphone makers" are now revising plans for mobile devices, out of fear of potential lawsuits and memorandum-spewing iPads.

   IBM: More than 13 billion plastic bottles are disposed of each year, and while plastic is a big source of recycling, the material its made from is limited to "second generation reuse," meaning it can't be recycled repeatedly. Scientists at IBM and Stanford announced a breakthrough in green chemistry today though, pioneering a polymer that could create a new recycling process that would reduce waste. With every person in the U.S. disposing up to 63 pounds of plastic packaging annually, this discovery could go a long way toward reducing our carbon footprint.

   Samsung: Electronics juggernaut Samsung started selling 3D televisions this week in the U.S. along with Panasonic. For just $3,000, you get a 46-inch TV, a 3D-compatible Blu-ray player, the eagerness of waiting months for Avatar's release, and a whopping two pairs of 3D shades, which really seals the deal if you ask me. Panasonic on the other hand is hawking the same Blu-ray player and a 50-inch plasma for $2,900--don't be fooled by that larger screen though, since Panasonic only includes ONE PAIR of 3D glasses, which apparently accounts for the hundred dollar price difference. Totally a deal breaker--I can't watch reruns of Sportscenter 3D on Saturday nights alone--that would be so lame! Could you?

   
   

   
   (03/10/10 09:00 PM)

4. Why the End Times Might Reek of Methane.

   What does a climate change "tipping point" look like? We may be about to find out first hand.

   Carbon dioxide isn't the only greenhouse gas out there. Other substances, such as water vapor and nitrous oxide, also trap heat to varying degrees. Discussions about global warming focus on CO2 for a couple of key reasons: the first is that human activities have demonstrably increased carbon dioxide; the second is that the other gases tend to cycle out of the atmosphere pretty quickly. For the most part, unless there's a sudden, massive increase in the amount of the other greenhouse gases, we can safely focus on CO2.

   Well, guess what?

   Scientists from Alaska's International Arctic Research Center, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Stockholm University have published an article in Science magazine indicating the discovery of a startlingly large amount of methane coming from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf--methane that was thought to be frozen, in the form of methane clathrates. How much methane? An amount equivalent to the total of methane coming from the rest of the world's oceans. The key paragraph, from the National Science Foundation press release:

   They found that more than 80 percent of the deep water and more than 50 percent of surface water had methane levels more than eight times that of normal seawater. In some areas, the saturation levels reached more than 250 times that of background levels in the summer and 1,400 times higher in the winter. They found corresponding results in the air directly above the ocean surface. Methane levels were elevated overall and the seascape was dotted with more than 100 hotspots. This, combined with winter expedition results that found methane gas trapped under and in the sea ice, showed the team that the methane was not only being dissolved in the water, it was bubbling out into the atmosphere.

   Okay, it's a lot of methane... so what?

   Click for larger

   Methane--CH4--actually traps a significantly greater amount of heat than does CO2. The NSF article cites it as 30 times greater greenhouse impact than carbon dioxide, and I've seen references between 20x and 72x, depending upon how it's measured. Regardless, this is a big difference, and the amount of methane frozen under the Siberian permafrost can be measured in the millions of tons (up to 70 billion tons across the entire permafrost region). If the East Siberian methane melts, it would be akin to tripling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, raising temperatures around the world by 8-10° C, and arctic temperatures by 20° C by the end of this century. That would be very, very bad, like you-really-don't-want-to-go-there bad.

   It turns out, in fact, that one of the biggest mass extinctions in Earth's history has been tied to a rapid methane clathrate melt.

   You see, the East Siberian methane is fairly close to the surface; as temperatures rise, methane clathrates deeper down will start to melt, making temperatures go up faster, melting even deeper stores of methane ice, and so on. It's a runaway feedback loop--what some folks call the "clathrate gun." This whole process would take just a few decades. Melting methane clathrates are pretty much the scariest of the so-called "tipping point" effects of anthropogenic global warming. We don't need to burn every fossil fuel on the planet to make something awful happen, we just have to burn enough to start to thaw out methane ice, and natural processes take it from there.

   There are two immediate questions we need to answer:

   1) Does this study show us that there's a runaway methane event underway? The short answer is no. This is the first detailed study of methane concentrations in the region, so we don't know for sure whether the methane concentrations are increasing slowly, increasingly quickly, or not increasing at all. That the amount of methane is so disproportionate (and is higher than amounts found in ice core samples from thousands of years ago) suggests that something is happening, but in my expert opinion, it's not yet time to panic.

   2) What can we do about it? It depends on how fast the methane clathrates are melting. If they're melting slowly, our best bet would be to do everything humanly possible to cut anthropogenic carbon emissions to zero. We have to avoid pushing the climate into a runaway methane tipping point; the faster we cut our carbon emissions, the better chance we have of avoiding this catastrophe.

   If the methane clathrates are melting quickly, however, the story gets more complicated. Although we'd want to get to zero as quickly as we could, because of the carbon we've already put into the atmosphere--which keeps warming us--and because of ocean thermal inertia--the pace at which the ocean warms up and cools down--we'd still see another few decades of warming. Simply going to zero wouldn't be enough to avoid a methane runaway, if the clathrates are already melting quickly.

   This is where the desperation moves come in. It's quite likely that, for many people, a clathrate melt would mean geoengineering goes from being a "Plan B" to "Plan Ohmygodyouhavetostartdoingthisnow." At the very least, we would need to step up the study of how temperature-management geoengineering would affect the overall environment, because there's a very good chance we'll want to use it.

   We also would want to look at ways to remove the methane from the oceans and the atmosphere. I have a long post over at my main blog detailing what this would entail, but it's enough to say here that while it wouldn't be easy, it looks like it might be possible. This would have its own side-effects, too, of course... but probably not as bad as a mass extinction event.

   The big lesson here is that the Earth's environment is a fantastically complex system, and changing one parameter--in this case, the temperature--can have effects far beyond what a simple straight line extrapolation would suggest. If we're lucky, follow-up studies will show that the methane emissions are either stable or only growing slowly, giving us enough time to upgrade how we live without having to do anything risky. But even if this is the case, good luck can't hold on forever.

   (For more details on the effects of rapid methane melts, see this piece at Climate Progress, and this piece at Worldchanging.)

   
   

   
   (03/10/10 09:00 PM)

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11. June is Entrepreneur's "Do It Yourself" Marketing Month!.

    For those of you who are not yet fans of Chase's Calendar of Events, you'll find that it's a great resource for you or for your clients when seeking those special holidays to tie your promotions to! In fact, there only ONE entry in the entire book with the word "marketing" in the title, and it happens to be in honor of Entrepreneurs "Do It Yourself" Marketing Month in June. Of course, that's reason to celebrate.

    In order to do our part for the celebration, we've created a cool little e-book with some marketing planning tools and 30 ideas for entrepreneurs, along with a 30-day e-course starting on June 1st. What's even better is that there's different content and different ideas in the e-book and the e-course, so it's like you're getting two for one!

    Learn more about Entrepreneurs "Do It Yourself" Marketing Month at: www.diymarketingmonth.com

    Below is the press release signaling the launch of Entrepreneurs "Do It Yourself" Marketing Month coming up in June.
    

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

    Contact: DanaVanDen Heuvel
    The MarketingSavant Group
    888-989-7771
    dana@marketingsavant.com

    MarketingSavant Group reaches out to entrepreneurs with "DIY" marketing in honor of June's "Do it Yourself" Marketing Month

    Green Bay, WI -- (May 13, 2009) Even in struggling economic times,
    small businesses' entrepreneurial spirit continues to be a driving
    force in the American economy.

    A Green Bay, Wis.-based marketing consulting and training firm is
    reaching out to the backbone of American business, providing a
    Do-It-Yourself Marketing Plan customized specifically for
    entrepreneurs. MarketingSavant is delivering free marketing tools just
    in time for Entrepreneurs "Do It Yourself" Marketing Month in June.

    "As an entrepreneur myself, I know how challenging it is to keep
    marketing 'top of mind' and to stay front of mind with your customers
    when you're wearing multiple hats," said Dana VanDen Heuvel, president
    of MarketingSavant and creator of the month-long Do It Yourself
    Entrepreneur Marketing Plan geared to small business. "But effective
    marketing is even more pivotal to a small business' well-being than
    their larger peers'."

    Not to mention the sheer number of small businesses ripe for
    marketing assistance. Small business is not equated with small
    financial impact. Consider these statistics:
    

    
    
    • In 2008, there were an estimated 27 million small businesses in the U.S. (Source: Small Business Administration)
    
    
    • In 2008, 12 million people were involved in starting new firms. (Source: Small Business Administration)
    
    
    • For 90 percent of these beginning entrepreneurs, it takes more
      than five years for an outcome to be determined. In that time,
      one-third disengage, one-third continue in start-up mode and another
      third implement a new firm. (Source: U.S. Small Business Administration)
    
    
    • Small businesses provide half the nation's nonfarm, private real
      gross domestic product, and half of all Americans work for a small
      firm. In addition, small businesses have been the primary job generator
      in the U.S. economy, creating 60 to 80 percent of the new net jobs
      annually from 1994 to 2004.(Source: Small Business Administration)
    
    

    
    With numbers like these, there's a substantial audience that can
    benefit from Do It Yourself marketing tools customized to their unique
    needs. The MarketingSavant DIY Entrepreneur Marketing Plan includes
    several resources that entrepreneurs can quickly put to use, as well as
    tools to build their long-term marketing plans, including:
    

    
    
    • "30 Days of DIY Marketing" e-book, an excellent resource that
      provides a marketing calendar and more than 30 do-it-yourself marketing
      ideas to grow your business over the summer;
    
    
    • 30-day e-course, delivered daily by email, highlighting marketing tips;
    
    
    • Eligibility to receive one of 10 free copies of the book, "Guerilla Marketing in 30 Days" by Jay Conrad and Al Lautenslager;
    
    
    • Free access to a BlogTalkRadio program featuring insights from Lautenslager, a well-known and respected guerrilla marketer
    
    
    • Tips for reaching out to the media to obtain media coverage on your event/product/service
    
    
    • Much more!
    
    

    
    "Realistically, entrepreneurs want to take charge of their own
    marketing, just as they take charge of everything related to their
    businesses," said VanDen Heuvel. "The DIY Marketing Plan makes this
    good intention a reality by delivering a comprehensive plan
    specifically for entrepreneurs in an easy-to-implement, do-it-yourself
    format."

    To learn more about the DIY Entrepreneur Marketing Plan and/or to
    participate in the plan for your small business' benefit, visit www.diymarketingmonth.com today!

    
    
    (05/14/09 09:00 PM)

12. Is That Your Onion in MySpace?. From a press release announcing that The Onion is partnering with MySpace (primarily to bring video to the social network):THE ONION BRINGS JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY, CORRECT PUNTCUATION TO MYSPACE Respected Pillar of Journalism Partners With Fledgling Unknown “Website” The news business is like the tobacco business: you want to reach new readers at as young and impressionable an age as possible, Onion president Sean Mills said. MySpace was, of course, a natural partner in that regard.It's good to see that they take the same care in writing their press releases as they do their hard news.... (08/08/07 09:00 PM)

13. Career Tip #13: Answer First. Answer First means that in any communications setting you should give the answer first (your point of view, recommendation, conclusion, finding, etc.) and then follow with details. This is applicable when you come into your manager’s office to propose an idea, or when you’re presenting a proposal to a group, or if you’re in a 1x1 with a peer talking about a new direction. Many people do it the other way around – build up the background, details of decision criteria, lay out all the options, and eventually they get to the recommendation or decision is. When you load someone up with a bunch of words before you get to the point, you’ve diluted your point. Presenting answer first is also the right way to write press releases and typically how newspaper stories are written. The gist of the story is usually found in the first two paragraphs, and the rest of the article is details. Why answer first? Executives communicate that way, and they want to be communicated to that way (in 1x1s or in a presentation). Why would an executive promote someone who rambles or seems indecisive? Answer first forces you to communicate your point or decision early in a conversation, and that portrays authority and confidence. Giving the punch line in the beginning causes people to pay attention to the details, if they are needed. And if they aren't needed, and the executive or audience approves of your 'answer' or decision, then shut up! Because ‘less is... (01/21/07 09:00 PM)

14. What Basic Information Goes in a Press Release?. In addition to the news itself, your press release should indicate where your company is headquartered and who to contact for more information ; or to set up an interview. Both of those things, along ...
    
    (08/22/06 09:00 PM)

15. When Should You Send Out a Press Release?. Any time your company would like some media coverage!Press releases are a must when launching a new product or service. A press release should also go out when you open a branch office, change locatio ...
    
    (08/21/06 09:00 PM)

16. Airport parking and Ross Perot. There is no friction at a free PR press release site (PR Leap). It doesn't matter who you know or how many phone calls you can afford to make... all press releases here are listed for free... though the paid... (08/12/06 09:03 PM)