HubSpot's Press Release Grader is a free application that evaluates your press release and provides a "marketing effectiveness score". The score is based on the language and content of the release, plus advanced factors from Internet marketing experts at HubSpot such as links and search engine optimization characteristics.

Wow. This is such an awesome tool. You’re hearing about it here first, but my guess is that this will become a popular little application in PR circles.

Press Release Grader is totally free. All you do is copy and paste press release text into the tool, add a few other things like your company name and URL and it takes just seconds to produce a score. But you also get detailed suggestions for improvement.

Press Release Grader even checks for the gobbledygook words I identified in my Gobbledygook Manifesto. How cool is that?

You can watch a short video on the site to learn how it works.

I asked two people from HubSpot - Dharmesh Shah, Chief Software Architect & Founder and Mike Volpe, VP Marketing - why they created it.

"It's unclear whether press releases are effective these days. But, if you're going to be creating press releases and putting them on the web, you might as well get the most value you can out of them," says Dharmesh Shah. "Press Release Grader checks to see if you're (generally) doing the right things. It was created with the same general motivation as our popular WebsiteGrader.com tool. Help people get a quick sense for where they're deviating from best practices. Press Release Grader will not make your press releases more interesting -- but it will hopefully give you some quick tips for getting more value out of them."

"The best way to grow your business today is through inbound marketing – creating remarkable content targeted at your buyer personas, and enabling them to share that content with others," says Mike Volpe. "We have no idea if Press Release Grader will be a big hit, but under the new rules of inbound marketing, you act more like a publisher - create lots of content knowing that some smaller portion of it will be a big success."

If you write press releases, you need to check this out.

(Also note what a great viral marketing concept Press Release Grader is for HubSpot).

Disclosure: I am on HubSpot's board of advisors and I am speaking at the HubSpot Inbound Marketing Conference in September.

Several weeks ago I led a panel discussion at the The 2008 Milken Institute Global Conference. The Milken event "brought together some of the most extraordinary people in the world - from scientists, business executives and philanthropists to journalists, academics and Nobel laureates - for three days of discussions on how to solve some of our most pressing social, political and economic challenges."

My panel was called The Changing Rules of PR and Corporate Influence in the Digital Age and included the following panelists:
- Jason Calacanis, Founder and CEO, Mahalo.com
- Hope Boonshaft, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Hill & Knowlton
- Steven Rubenstein, President, Rubenstein Communications Inc.
Moderator: David Meerman Scott (that would be me)

It was an awesome panel with lots of spirited debate and controversy. You can listen to a recording via a link on the panel page or by going here to get a direct link.

In an article that appeared on CNET called The future of business is social: notes from the Milken Global Conference, Tim Leberecht said panelist Jason Calacanis, was "in-character as enfant terrible, thrived in the devilish charm of the futurist, joyfully exposed the insecurity of his audience."

Some things that were discussed:
- "Is PR dead?"
- "Should our CEO blog?"
- "How do I stay in control of my brand if our CEO gets critical comments to his blog posts?"

My only regret was my role as moderator. In order to let the panelists express their opinions, I focused on being a traffic cop (it was tough at some points with so many strong opinions!) so my own thoughts weren't aired.

If you've got a free hour, this is worth a listen.

I'm often asked if the "new rules" I write and talk about apply in other countries, cultures, and languages.

YES!

Based on hundreds of emails I've received from people around the world who tell me that they've implemented the ideas, I can say that the new rules are certainly global. It doesn't matter where you live or what language you're most comfortable with – people find answers to their problems on the web and often turn to a search engine first.

Another piece of evidence for the new rules being applicable globally are the 15 publishers around the world who have acquired the rights to my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Doing a book translation is expensive, so these publishers obviously see a significant market for the new rules.

Over the next year or so, the book will be coming out in these languages (with more likely to come): Bulgarian, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal markets), Chinese (simplified and orthodox), Lithuanian, Russian, Polish, Czech, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Serbian, Turkish, and Italian.

It usually takes more than a year for a book to come out in a new language. It needs to be translated, edited, covers designed, the books printed, and then moved through the distribution channel.

The first out of the gate is Portuguese, published by Porto Editora, Lda., the country's largest publisher. The book's title is As novas regras de Marketing e Relacoes Publicas.

Rui Couceiro and the team at Porto Editora have obviously read the book carefully because they created a great blog to promote the book and even re-worked several of my videos and posted them on the blog. Thanks!

I often get pushback from people who say things like: "This is just a North American thing, the new rules won't work in _____________" (fill in a country name). I don't think so. From what I see, we're witnessing a global phenomenon.

Several weeks ago I received an email from a senior diplomat who is part of the United Nations delegation of an important country. He told me that The New Rules of Marketing & PR has been a great help to him and he requested a signed copy for the President of his country, which he wanted to personally hand deliver to him. How cool is that?

Readers of this blog know that I get hundreds of unsolicited press releases and PR pitches every week. I'm on a bunch of lists because of this blog, my books, and the magazines I write for. Ugh.

I've said before that almost all the crap I get from PR agencies is spam: A broadcast email message sent to a huge number of journalists with the hope that some poor sucker on deadline and will give in and write.

- No, I do not want to buy Viag*ra.

- No, I do not care one bit about the press release announcing version 3.1 (beta) of your flexible, scalable, mission-critical, next generation product.

- No I do not want to share in the $20,000,000 (twenty million US dollars only) that your now dead husband, the former oil minister of Nigeria, had stashed away.

- No, I will not talk to the CEO of your client who has graciously made time next Thursday to speak to reporters about the company’s new initiatives in the dog food business.

[Editorial note: If you have something to say to me personally, great. Please send it. My email is public. You can also reach me on Facebook or Twitter. I do write about things sent to me in my books and on this blog. But it needs to be an idea that you send just to me. Please don’t spam me.]

OK, so let's get to what may be the dumbest PR person in the world...

Yesterday I get a press release sent via email. It's typical – some technology product that is so obscure and inconsequential that nobody, not even Geekster Weekly News would care about.

1. The subject line of the email reads: "News Release: [XYZ Company] enhances line of [blah blah]"

2. The email starts out: "[XYZ Company] is pleased to announce…"

3. Then there is a bunch of jargon-laden, hype-driven nonsense.

4. The sender then says: "Feel free to contact me if you would like more information or images to supplement this story."

5. Then the entire poorly written, gobbledygook-filled press release is pasted into the email.

So far, the release follows the standard (but ineffective) old-school PR agency playbook.

But then this is at the end of the email:

"PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL- WITHOUT PREJUDICE. Confidentiality Message. This e-mail message is confidential, may be privileged and is intended for the exclusive use of the addressee. Any other person is strictly prohibited from disclosing, distributing or reproducing it. If the addressee cannot be reached or is unknown to you, please inform the sender by return e-mail immediately and delete this e-mail message and destroy all copies. Thank you."

Holy cow!!

Here's some PR spam that has obviously been sent to thousands of journalists (because I got it and I have never once written about this stuff I know it is spam). But the sender says that the recipient of the spam email cannot disclose it. Huh?

You invade my email box with your crap.

You send an identical message to thousands of others.

You want me to write about your stuff.

Then you say that I cannot disclose the information because it is confidential and sent just to me?

WTF?

Last week I participated on a call with John Jantsch who asked me to share my top ten PR tips for small businesses with his audience. John is the author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide and he writes the very popular Duct Tape Marketing blog.

I had to take the call from my room in the Beverly Hilton because I was speaking at The Milken Institute Global Conference. OK, I'll admit that I didn't prepare for the call (sorry John) and just banged out ten tips a few minutes before we spoke.

After the call, I realized that sometimes there is value to top-of-mind ideas. Nuggets of value may be lost when you obsess over getting every detail perfect. So I thought I'd share the list with you. No, it is not comprehensive - given time I would choose different things for the list and re-order what's here:

1. The old ways to get noticed were to buy expensive advertising and beg the media to write about you and your products. The best way to get noticed today is to publish great content online.

10. Don't be egotistical. Nobody cares about you and your products. Your buyers care about themselves and solving their problems.