Review of Press Release Generating Software

Someone was offering the PR-O-Matic software in another thread. I knew it would be a load of crap, but needed something to blog about today anyway, so I bought it to review it. If you're thinking about using automatic content generation software for your press releases, at least read the review first and see what you're getting as opposed to the marketing claims. If you've used it and loved it, heck, go ahead and say so either here or on the blog. I just can't stand seeing stuff like this promoted to grab onto the few naive enough to think it really works. Call me old fashioned, but I'm kind of big on honesty in marketing.

Short story... content generators are crap. They're no good for article creation, and they're definitely no good for press release creation. And I'm not just saying that because I sell them... I point you to a few free resources right in the review that will help you write your own release much better than this kind of software ever will.

 

Yea, anything with O-Matic at the end of it is a real piece of ... something.

 

lol Yeah. I knew that going in. But for $2 I got something to amuse myself with for two reviews, so it was worth it just to rip into it a bit. The whole false advertising thing just always rubs me the wrong way.

 

As soon as I saw the thread topic and your name as the topic starter, I knew you would be slamming the hell out of it and telling people not to use it. Good advice as always Jenn.

 

I too think the Press release should be written manually and also it should be submitted to PR sites manually rather than using any such software.

 

I just can't believe that people get away with it.... seriously, pretty much every marketing claim I've seen for this product is a flat out lie, like saying it's "instant" (as if they didn't still have to write it themselves), as if it's "foolproof" (all you get is a few paragraphs with a centered title... if you can't handle that in a word processer you're probably not bright enough to know what real news is anyway), and worst of all saying that it formats the release how editors want to see it (it's not even close to looking like anything but a one-page first grade research report). Total garbage.

I can understand the attraction of wanting something easier. But really, there are enough free templates out there that tell you exactly what to do without turning out cookie cutter crap.

If I had the slightest clue how to build any kind of software application, I'd probably give it a go. Something deeper than a plug-in form might actually be useful to someone new (like widgets that let you move elements around to play with your formatting, lots of samples of actually successful releases included, plenty of real tips on how to write things, a differentiation between various types of press releases depending on your needs, suggested action phrases that work well in releases, etc., maybe all tied with a media contact list or at least something dealing with distribution). Something like that might be effective for the non-PR person or business owner that wanted to go it alone. But this automatic content crap really drives me up a wall, b/c it just plays on naivity of what the content or release is actually supposed to look like and do.