Earlier this month, my colleague Marion Fugléwicz-Bren talked about the current state of semantic technologies in the public relations business in an interview with Markus Pirchner, who runs a ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million (2.4 million within the metropolitan area, more than 25% of Austria's population), and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well ...-based company (future.bytes) focusing on online PR and PR 2.0. While Pirchner himself (who is also a blogger) appeared pretty clued about the Semantic Web, he conceded that the PR industry rather relies on “the tried and tested”:

PR industry mainstream has never been at the forefront of developments (neither has mainstream media), and it is not expected to be. It’s simply not its job; it has always relied on the tried and tested. The PR industry will adopt anything that makes its job easier or more effective and successful; that’s why the Semantic Web will find its way into PR in the end.

Another not quite so recent development which he mentioned – and which nonetheless was new to me – is XPRL, an extensible mark-up language for the PR industry. XPRL emerged from a project started in 2001 and currently chaired by Anne Gregory (Leeds Metropolitan University). So far they have developed three process standards for media relations: document release, clippings briefing and coverage report. Learn more at www.XPRL.org (and don’t forget the www in the future, or else you’ll be directed to a cyber squatter’s page).

Read the interview with Markus Pirchner here.