Hi, press releases serve an important process of providing a central reference for a distributed community to use when making an announcement.

1)I lead the effort to get a Drupal 6 press release and we got it translated into over a dozen languages. The association paid $300 to a press release distribution agency to help get the announcement distributed. According to Dries, who monitors news services for mentions of Drupal that press release didn't get a lot of pick-up with the press. I am not sure we would use the service again, but I do believe that the community is not yet effective at reaching out to target journalists and industry publications. If anyone has some ideas, I'd like to hear them.

2)I spoke to some people at IBM last year and they encouraged Drupal to come up with a diverse set of Case Studies and Showcases. I've been putting a lot of effort into this. I've been working with a number of Drupal shops to get more case studies and show case announcements on Drupal.org. The community is slowly coming to terms that having a PR Agency posting a press release about a Drupal shop project on Drupal.org is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact we need a lot more to demonstrate the diversity and vibrancy of a healthy Drupal ecosystem.

I think the path forward for Drupal marketing efforts is for local groups and locally focused companies to do regional marketing. But I am not sure we've figured out how to reach technology journalist with major Drupal announcemets.

Kieran Lal
Hard working member of the Drupal association
Drupal community adventure guide, Acquia Inc.