• Edelman, the world’s largest independent public relations firm, yesterday announced the release of StoryMakerUpper 1.0. The web-based proprietary software tool is designed to help their clients manufacture news stories with pushbutton, fill-in-the-blank ease. StoryMakerUpper minimizes the burden of actual writing skills.
• The StoryMakerUpper is almost identical to Shift Communicatons’ social media news release template and appears to be a derivative of the PRX Builder service announced in September. However, by also incorporating features such as comments and trackback, Edelman uniquely can help companies dramatically lessen the time it takes to get mugged by rabid pitchfork-and-torch-bearing idiots in the blogosphere.
• The development of the software is a major milestone in the career of PR’s recognized first blogger and Edelman Senior Counsel for Online Communications, Phil Gomes. Apparently, Phil's been hard at work on this for months.
• StoryMakerUpper was "extensively" beta-tested by several undergraduate students from Auburn University vying for internships at Edelman. The application's debut failed the Web standard WC3 markup validation with 152 errors.

Quote Attributable to Phil Gomes:

• “My primary concern about how the social media news release is currently conceived is that it’s really less “social media” than “news release.” The focus is all about “attention” and not about “conversation.” If one values conversation as a first-order variable, that’s where the focus oughta be.”
• “Made no sense to completely reinvent something for the sake of doing so, though we do think that the hosted approach and the comments element add something.”
• “There are only so many ways one can skin a fill-in-the-blank social-news-release cat. So it doesn't surprise me that someone would see similarities to another product in any one screen.”
• “Can I go home now?"

Quotes Attributable to Steve Rubel, SVP, Edelman:

• “It basically breaks down a press release into its core parts, leaving it up to you to decide how it should be put together.”
• “We're looking forward to working with our clients to adopt this new format.”

Quote Attributable to Rick Murray, President, Edelman's Me2Revolution:

• “We believe that just as brands are beginning to cede control to consumers, so too must PR practitioners start ceding control of messages and stories to both mainstream and citizen journalists.”

Quote Attributable to Mike Keliher, PR Practice Manager, Provident Partners:

• “This looks like SHIFT Communication’s work with Edelman branding. Considering these "social media releases" are just Web pages with a specific purpose, wouldn't only true beginners limit themselves to structured output from a content management system. And isn't that - a CMS - basically what this is?"

Quote Attributable to Dee Rambeau, Managing Partner, TheFuelTeam:

• “I was cracking up reading the Edelman announcement…gee, 'a web-based wizard to create social media news releases.' You mean a content management system? You mean a WYSIWYG? You mean an open-source thingy that any developer with 1/2 a brain could create in 30 minutes type of doohickey? Oh...but it’s got their name on it...I guess that's what’s important...”

Quote Attributable to Dominic Jones principal of Clarity! Communications of Canada Inc. and the founder of IR Web Report:

• “Nice concept, shame about the execution. Doesn't validate to W3C standards, and what's with all the tables? Was this tested with journalists and can we see the results please? Unfortunately, rushing out a proprietary solution for Edelman's gain is a step backward for all those who want to credibly put forward an open alternative to current practice.”

Quote Attributable to Brian Oberkirch, Social Media Guru:

• “The social media news release (SMNR) is an attempt by communication firms to ward off strategy decay. Two of their biggest deliverables (creating media materials and managing press relations) are eroding as social media gain traction. The SMNR is a hail mary play to professionalize and corral what will start to become organic by-products of distributed organizational communication. There will be no one format or standardization, and the only real consumers of SMNR argumentation will be agencies and those who might hire them.”

Attached directly below is Edelman's logo, along with the crack Auburn beta testers Elizabeth, Kristi and Stephanie, as well at the StoryMakerUpper fill-in-the-blank screen.

Edelman has some 2,200 employees in 46 offices worldwide. The firm's client list includes Dove, United Parcel Service, Pfizer, Microsoft, Wal-mart and other diverse public and private interests.