Is news about public IT-companies more important than from private ones?

Reading the various IT-news feeds, I noticed a distinct difference in the frequency, amount and content of articles and newsflashes between public and private companies. Is this logical?

First one would think that size matters. Indeed, most of the larger companies are public but exceptions are present. Larger doesn’t automatically mean higher activity levels or more newsworthy. Often the smaller private companies with growing market share are “hotter” in this sense.

If you dive a bit deeper its seems that there is a logical content difference: public companies have to publish and private companies may publish. Shareholder transparency is of course important but it results in a flood of non-items to be published. Of course there are people interested that a very large company from Seattle has released a “beta version of CRM product Xyz” but is this general newsworthy? I would be more interested in the development strategy of a bright new startup.

Could it be that there is a bit of journalist laziness around? Public companies have fully staffed press units who release many items per day. An easy pick for a journalist: with some copy-and-paste you have to article for the day. Private companies often don’t invest enough in PR. Either they can’t afford it or it is just not in the DNA.

Since I have worked for private companies I know that as a manager it is difficult to spend time and money on PR that is difficult to get placed in serious feeds. Like a lot of colleagues in that same position I rather would spend my time on a serious article in a magazine, finding that to get it placed is costly too.

With the world of blog and RSS being part of our daily lives there are alternatives around for private companies to distribute their news to an interested audience. Weirdly enough, although this seems a very low maintenance option, I see not a lot of RSS-links offered. Follow-options on business community sites like LinkedIn could be another variant.

Of course general IT-news feeds or sites for me will remain useful for real headline news and background stories but I would like to see a more personalized “morning paper” with balanced general and company sources giving me the information that I want. Probably someone has invented this already. Let me know if you found your instant newspaper already.

hans.van.nes@results2match.com