PR students and APRs will recall that Ivy Ledbetter Lee is credited with issuing the first press release in the early 1900′s for The Pennsylvania Railroad. Today, we’re still issuing the same press release, complete with the ### (which really serves no purpose if you are e-mailing the release).

Web 2.0 offers the perfect opportunity for an extreme press release makeover. Enter the Social Media Press Release. The Social Media Press Release targets traditional journalists as well as bloggers and consumers. This new type of press release is Web 2.0 friendly, complete with bullet points, links to videos, RSS feeds and tags for del.icio.us, digg and Technorati.

SHIFT Communications offers a Social Media Press Release template, which may seem a bit daunting to traditionalists. But Coca-Cola’s example is quite simple and straightforward. This overhaul really breathes new life into news releases.

It’s been a hundred years of the same old press release format. I’m ready for a change. Are you?