Could this be connected to the media shift?
Some reports I saw this week piqued my interest.
NewsDay has admitted that it had inflated its circulation by about 100,000 copies on weekdays and Sunday for the 12 months ended September 2003; Hoy’s circulation was inflated by 45,000 copies during the same period. Parent Tribune Co. has set aside $90 million to reimburse advertisers who paid for fraudulently inflated circulation.
News reports of U.S. media layoffs, begun shortly after the start of the dot-com bust, has recorded nearly 72,000 job cuts since June 2000. source: I Want Media
Online ad spend has been up eight week in a row. In the fourth quarter of 2004, online advertising reached a new high of $2.7 billion, according to independent research conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers for the Internet Advertising Bureau. This steady climb was further supported by strong Q1 2005 earnings from Yahoo and Google, indicating a solid resurgence for online advertising.
Seems to me these might be connected. And that companies should check out using optimized press releases as they cost far less than online ads and reach an interested news audience.
This kind of exposure could do wonders for their search engine visibility, traffic and online brand awareness.
