HARO Announces Product Launch

HARO (Help a Reporter Out) is launching a host of new features to support their system, which connects journalists and bloggers (let’s call them content producers) with PR/marketing folks interested in getting coverage.

According to most accounts, HARO was launched as a Facebook group in 2007 (although HARO had probably been manifesting organically through founder Peter Shankman’s own network for many years prior).  After HARO outgrew Facebook, they transitioned to a Web-based / e-mail-driven service and grew over the next 1.5 years to a community that today includes ~30,000 content producers and > 100K PR/marketing folks (who HARO refers to as Sources).

The basic premise is simple and smart: on one one side of the fence you have content producers with a demand for information.  On the other side of the fence, you have information sources with a vested interest in getting their name into published content.  Facilitate relevant interactions between the two and overlay the conversation with advertising.

The key to HARO’s early success can be extrapolated from their brand: they build for journalists and bloggers.  That has built a good deal of brand equity amongst content producers, which in turn leads to more interest from the marketing folks, which in turn is monetized through the ad overlay.  It’s a good model, especially as the media ecosystem continues to tighten up and become increasingly intertwined.

The new launch really seems to accomplish the following main goals:

• Increase value to content producers through some interesting features including ephemeral e-mails for content producers;
• Introduce top-line scalability by introducing verticalized e-mail digests;
• Increase overalll scalability by introducing more automation of workflow.

The product features are pretty cool but my sense is this is more about positioning HARO for growth moving forward.  I like what they are doing: they have a successful model; a good, clean UI and an insightful, talented management team.   They are definitely one company to watch in ’10.