You make an important point here Chris, you're right that blogger requests can vary quite a lot in their 'quality'. Having said that, they are not alone and some journalists are tempted to blag a bit too. Anyway, this is an issue we look at all the time and I have written about it previously: http://www.dwpubsporadic.com/2011/12/our-approach-to-moderating-responsesource-enquiries.html

Good point Marc. It's often the case that the PR consultant gets it but the client doesn't. In this situation it falls to the PR to argue the case for blogger outreach, this can be challenging when there is no hard and fast way of quantifying influence.

Andy, you raise an interesting point. Though I would not describe it as an 'opportunity rather than a threat' rather 'a threat and maybe an opportunity'. Someone taking content and reselling it will always be able to charge less as they have none of capital investment and overheads needed to generate a constant stream of varied, useful requests. So such a thing is always a threat regardless of what we charge. As for pricing and packaging, I feel the existing service is reasonably flexible without being too complicated and offers good value for money, but as the service gets more sophisticated there may be the opportunity to offer a wider range of packages.

Thanks for your comments Carina. We'll always strive to maintain our existing culture, I think it's one of the reasons people do business with us.

'Delighted' is the 423rd most common word. I thought that surprising too - it's the sort worn-out expression CEOs often use it in quotes: "We're delighted to announce..." etc

Thanks for your comments - this is a very valid contribution. I would imagine there are PR professionals specialising in other vertical sectors, in addition to construction, that will also be impacted indirectly through public sector cuts. Our survey didn't really cater for this unfortunatley. But at least it may give a snapshot of what is happening so far.

Very good point Andy. I'm sure you're right - no doubt pure play digital agencies struggle with PR skills. But in my experience SEO agencies tend to be more more aware of that shortfall and show real enthusiasm for working alongside experienced PR professionals. As for digital agencies merging with PR agencies - I don't believe there has been much evidence of this yet. But there is certainly an exchance of talent between the two in some cases.

Many thanks for your comments Chris, you make some very valid points. I empathise with the need to give startup businesses support – I was a startup myself once. And I agree it is a two way street, but I think there is a real risk one side of that street could be wider than the other. I believe if a startup has a good business model then it can bootstrap the business without exploiting people. When I started my business from scratch in my South London flat 13 years ago, I paid my staff. Not very much, but I paid them. I even ran up credit card debts to do so. My business became a success and I think that's partly down to the way we looked after our people. On your other point, about highlighting unpaid positions, I did consider that. I also considered accepting unpaid positions that comply with the NUJ guidelines for work experience. But in the end I decided to just stop advertising unpaid positions altogether because I wanted to take a stand. I don't think it will stop work experience exploitation, but if it makes a few more people think about the issues then it will be worth it.

You make a completely valid point, PJ. You are of course right that most media outlets are driven by the market and as a result many commissioning editors are forced into making difficult decisions. But the market is also influenced by factors such as reputation and quality. Using unpaid or poorly-paid labour tends to bring these factors to the fore. From our perspective the reputation of our media job site, SourceThatJob, was at stake by advertising unpaid positions. So we took the decision not to take them any more. This has cost us financially in the short term, but at least we have retained the respect of our audience, without whom we would be nothing.

Fortunateley for you my lawyers were a bit busy today, something to do with a national newspaper and toxic waste or something. My research tomorrow will be mainly focussed on a detailed examination of the contents of the Jackenhacks bar. It seems only right. Hic.

By chance I wrote a post along similar lines (http://www.dwpubsporadic.com/2009/08/journalists-changing-behavior.html) - though I think you made the point more eloquently than I. Quite right about the risk of delivering digitally for the sake of it, effective online PR requires an understanding of the subtleties of digital media and is not simply about box-ticking.