This release explains the details of a new service being offered to companies that employ the services of CCNMatthews, a press release service that sends out info directly to CP newswire, which is where every newsroom in Canada gets the BG for most of their stories. According to the release:

Social Media distribution quickly and cost-effectively delivers news to community-driven online content forums and social media sites, such as Digg, Del.icio.us and Newsvine, giving press releases the power to become part of the dialogue within these increasingly popular and influential online communities

But here’s the thing? A typical press release will be as much a part of a “dialogue” as the outgoing message on your answering machine is part of a “conversation”. Both are static – but the OGM at least invites you to leave a message.

Rather than trying to cram an old media version of something into a new media space, effective press releases in the age of social media will actually start to look much more like this; arguably Canada’s first-ever social media release, sent out by High Road Communications and iStudio in support of something called Weblo and also like this, which is the social media release detailing Edleman PR’s introduction of storyCrafter, a “web-based tool for publishing social media news releases”. They both employ all of the elements of a social media press release as recommended by The Social Media Club and Shift Communications (the originators of the concept) – not just tags.

I’m not sure how much time and effort CCNMatthews spent on this initiative; I hope not a lot.