...it began in 2000, with a teenager, an old computer and an idea. The computer has been replaced, the teenager is older, wiser and the idea has blossomed into RealWire. 

Back then, anyone who predicted that the world wide web would mature to become such a hugely influential global medium may have been branded a geek; others, more kindly, would have seen the thought as “ahead of its time”.
 
Jonathan Dolby saw both the power of the medium to persuade and the need of marketers and communicators to reach the writers and editors that were beginning to populate this emerging space.  Joined by Adam Parker, together they set about creating what was then (and largely still is) a unique service. See BBC article.

Our Approach

“We invested a lot of time – and still do - talking to online journalists and then bloggers too, to understand what they wanted and how they wanted to receive it.  

“Talking to marketers and PRs we also discovered that many were unsure of this new medium and were finding that the ‘paste and send’ of some distribution services wasn’t delivering much coverage.  We were amazed, aghast even, at how many news releases were being sent, never to be seen, picked up or heard from again.”

The underlying trend of internet development is to replace conversation with technology; to date, however, no machine has been developed that replaces the ability to detect the subtle nuances of an individual’s needs. 

“The reality is that real people create the news, real people edit it and then real living, breathing people read it. Our role at RealWire is to match senders to recipients and thus ultimately readers.

“If all this sounds a bit passionate, it’s because we are. We are excited by the online world; we delight in growing and nurturing our online contacts – now over 5,000. Equally, we delight in helping our clients be successful.  We are not a ‘send and forget operation’; we are motivated by finding better ways of monitoring news and then by demonstrating and evaluating its influence. We believe we are leaders in that field.  Likewise we are enthusiasts for the Social Media News Release and its potential to persuade and influence.”

Today that original idea is endorsed by hundreds of clients, and has spawned a largely graduate team, responsible for delivering the RealWire service and enabling online news to bloom.