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	Phil's Blogservations Thursday, March 20, 2008 Posted by philgomes 10:48 AM Peter Shankman's "Help A Reporter" What started out as a Facebook group quickly exceeded the confines of that service. Peter Shankman has launched Help A Reporter. I built this list because a lot of my friends are reporters, and they call me all the time for sources. Rather than go through my contact lists each time, I figured I could push the requests out to people who actually have something to say. My main thought is: Having started in PR twelve years ago, my "graduating class" kind of grew up with ProfNet. Why? Because our executives, managers, and supervisors did. What's next, then? How will ProfNet and its ilk defend its brand when pretty much anyone can/will develop a similar service? There certainly isn't any patentable or copyrightable IP at play here. Actually, for your convenience, I've graphically rendered all of the the barriers to entry in actual size: . The only real (and relatively small) challenge I see for bootstrapped services like Peter's is that maybe reporters might shy away from a service that's owned/operated/branded by a single communications consultant or agency. Then again, as I've observed (despite contrary popular opinion), PR pros aren't "damaged goods" on the face of it — it depends on their behavior. I don't see this as a problem for Peter, though, so we're back to my original thought: WWPD? ("What Will ProfNet Do?") Really, in the short term, it all comes down to ProfNet and similar services 1) continuing to remain relevant to successive generations of PR pros, and 2) leveraging their relatively independent status. Longer term, though, the picture just gets a lot more more murky. Help-A-Reporter-like services can quickly scale to a comparable quality/quantity of users. More news as it develops. Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, peter shankman, profnet | HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil's demented imagination. Hell, to be perfectly honest, even Phil disagrees with what he thinks sometimes. This site has virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Clicking on a link doesn't automatically send a 1/2-cent donation to UNICEF. You can't buy, sell, auction, swap, find a date, win friends, influence people, cross the chasm, or decode the human genome using this site. You won't get free email. You won't win a PalmOne Treo or a Playstation2. This site will not end world hunger, foster peace in the Middle East, help you smell better, teach you how to swing dance, or move the global economy from petroleum to hydrogen fuels. You'll learn a lot about this site's master, though, which amounts to a haphazard collection of strange and useless facts that pretty much won't help you at all.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This is the blog of Phil Gomes, VP with Edelman Digital and senior advisor to the Society for New Communications Research. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. Phil currently resides in Chicago, IL. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes.com View my page on PROpenMic SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.