One of the most elusive goals of a press release is that the release itself becomes a topic of online conversation. Of course, those of us who write and send releases would love to have mainstream media write about us. But what might be even more difficult is to have bloggers start a conversation about the contents of a press release. Press release as viral marketing fodder is great but elusive.

David McInnis and his team at the PRWeb news release wire have understood this and helped the process along by creating a facility for trackbacks in press releases. Now they are experimenting with these ideas by offering a $1000 prize to the first blogger who successfully identifies enhancements in the PRWeb service and responds by blogging about it and sending a trackback.
Cool idea. I gotta run (I'm speaking at a conference today). But for those of you who want to win the prize, one enhancement is PRWeb's pioneering of trackbacks in press releases. How do I know? I was quoted in the press release!