PRFilter, the first press release search engine, has been launched today to enable anyone to quickly find recent relevant press releases. The service indexes thousands of releases each day and is designed to save journalists and bloggers time and get PR stories in front of the most relevant media.
PRFilter’s search results are ranked based on a combination of relevance to the terms searched for and the extent to which PRFilter’s patent pending Active Interest Technology considers a release to be relevant to a greater number of journalists and bloggers. So the more people PRFilter thinks a release could be relevant to, the higher it is ranked.
The search application has been developed by UK press release distribution company RealWire and represents a significant expansion of its PRFilter platform. The technology was subject to testing by UK journalists and bloggers at the end of 2010 and initial feedback has been very positive. Founder of UK PR and journalist community, UKTJPR, Andrew Lim, said, “PRFilter is a fantastic way to manage press releases and find interesting stories.”
Initial sources include key paid newswires and distribution services such as Business Wire, PRNewswire, MarketWire and RealWire themselves. In addition releases are starting to be sourced direct from a number of the world’s largest companies with the initial focus being on the technology and media industries. More sources are to be added in the coming weeks.
Adam Parker, Chief executive of RealWire, said “PRFilter is designed to help both the Media and PR communities to find relevant stories as quickly and easily as possible. In a world where relevance is increasingly at a premium we need tools that focus on increasing the signal to noise ratio, not simply amplifying it. PRFilter seeks to do this in a human way by basing its automated predictions of relevance on the topics that journalists and bloggers write about the most.”
PRFilter operates as a standalone service, though its relevance prediction technology is now integrated into RealWire’s own existing distribution service offering.
The PRFilter platform also allows journalists and bloggers to register to access a specific profile built automatically from their own or their publication’s articles. This profile then ranks the press release content based on the topics they write about the most. Registered users can also teach PRFilter to better understand their interests by providing feedback on the releases suggested.
About PRFilter
PRFilter (Patent Pending*) from RealWire finds the press releases journalists and bloggers want to see. It provides one tool to efficiently find stories out of thousands it aggregates each day. Its innovative, Active Interest Technology™ builds a personalised profile of individual journalists’ and bloggers’ interests from their own, or their publication's, published articles.
Releases from multiple distribution sources are collected, aggregated, matched and ranked against these profiles in near real-time. Public users can search for relevant releases or view the releases assessed as most relevant to particular topics. Registered users can access their own personalised results and teach PRFilter to better understand their interests by providing feedback on releases shown. Senders of releases benefit because their stories are likely to be seen by genuinely interested journalists or bloggers, rather than becoming lost in inboxes.
Answers to FAQs can be found here.
*Patents Pending: European patent application No. 09168495.1, International patent application No. PCT/GB2009/051048, and UK patent application No. 1003104.5
About RealWire
RealWire is a press release distribution company that specialises in the online media. Since its inception in 2000 it has worked on behalf of PR agency and corporate clients throughout the UK and Europe. The company is UK based and distributes news to relevant journalists, editors, bloggers and publishers across thousands of online media sites which cover a range of industries including Telecoms, IT, Consumer Tech, Gaming, Broadcast, Pharma/Healthcare and Banking and Finance.
It provides a unique service by not only distributing news and multimedia content, but by also providing clients with analysis of the potential influence that their news has generated online. RealWire was the first UK distribution company to introduce the Social Media News Release - a new kind of press release to cater for the online media world.