SILICON VALLEY, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 08/18/06 -- SocialMediaClub.org (SMC) officially launched this week to elevate Social Media to a higher level of professionalism. The organization brings together different groups of social media practitioners such as bloggers, podcasters, publishers, journalists, students, artists, developers, marketers, and PR professionals.

SocialMediaClub.org was formed to share best practices, establish ethics and standards, and promote media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media. SMC was founded by Chris Heuer, serial Internet entrepreneur and executive director of the not-for-profit BrainJams.org.

According to Heuer, "This is the beginning of a global conversation about building an organization and a community where the many diverse groups of people who care about social media can come together to discover, connect, share, and learn."

SMC hosted its inaugural event this week in Silicon Valley to organize its first local chapter and to begin work on the hRelease, a new standard for modernizing the traditional press release for a Web-centric world. The group will announce an official Working Group dedicated to the New Media Release soon.

The New Media Release Google Group was established to discuss the future of the Press Release among PR professionals and other interested stakeholders. The Working Group will move the efforts from its initial discussions, as outlined on the hRelease Wiki donated by SocialText, to deliver the initial draft of the new standard.

Since the launch of its blog one month ago, SMC has received tremendous industry support which has enabled Heuer to expand the team with prominent industry veterans including, Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher, Howard Greenstein, one of the co-founders of the WWWAC List, Brian Solis, founder of FutureWorks, Inc. and PR2.0, Internet visionary Mitch Ratcliffe, Sally Falkow, president of Expansion Plus, Jennifer McCluer of Society for New Communications Research, angel advisor Timothy Taylor of Taylor, Inc. among other leaders of this emerging industry.

SMC will also host several Founders Circle Events with the first series planned for New York City, London, Miami, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Toronto, Seattle, and Los Angeles. The half day BrainJams-styled unconferences will focus on "The Rise of Social Media" and the specific needs of each local community for establishing a local chapter of Social Media Club.

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