The (real) death of the press release (again) (seriously)

I don't know about you, but I *love* Google's writing style and tone of voice when it launches new products via blog posts. The most recent example of this is overnight, when Gmail launched a new service out of its Labs team called Multiple Inboxes. 

Out with the intro line of a press release that starts: "Today, Acme inc, the world's leading bleurgh launches...". Gmail begins it's announcement of multiple inboxes with the line: "I'm seriously into filters and labels." 

So I'm wondering how quickly this trend of first person, casual but emphatically written blog post announcement style will catch on outside of the web allstars? We see it quite a lot with dot coms, it's nothing new there. But you won't see too much of it elsewhere. When will PR training courses in the UK, for example, teach press release writing and blog post writing in equal doses? And when will the traditional "five W's" style of a press release die out altogether, if ever, I wonder. 

Comments

[Frank Strong]

...but it works for Google. Not so sure it works for everyone...especially when people don't know you are the "leading blank company." The press release is not dead, IMHO.