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We are pleased to announce that the ExpertPR Web Site Awards are a huge success! We received over 75 entries in in the categories Sites Useful to PR Pros and Sites Useful to Journalists, and we even added a category: Sites Useful to All Of Us (ok, we admit, we should have thought of that). 

Our expert panel of judges evaluated entries on the basis of design and content and, of course, "usefulness." For a complete list of entries, click here. 

For PR Pros, the most useful site is All About Public Relations. The design is clean and simple, and there's oodles of useful and topical content, including links to information on everything from internships to dictionaries. 

Steven Van Hook, the brains behind the site, has a background in international journalism and PR, and he obviously knows PR inside and out. Our hats are off to him, and All About Public Relations can proudly proclaim itself the first winner of the Annual ExpertPR Web Site Award for the Site Most Useful to PR Pros.

Moving to the Media side, our winner is a site that, we'll admit, we were unaware of until the entry arrived. Boy, are we glad it was pointed out. Storydata.com is useful to journalists for sure, and it's also worth a look for anyone interested in the facts behind the news. Storydata.com describes itself as "a data analysis portal...Storydata.com allows anyone with Internet access to get more insight out of the data that drives the news." 

Let's face it: there's a lot of data out there, and even journalists are sometimes challenged to dissect it. This site helps them do just that, and as such, it is the first winner of the Annual ExpertPR Web Site Award for the Site Most Useful to Journalists.

Finally, there's the Site Most Useful to All Of Us. This one was entered by several people (none of whom are in corporate communications for the company or from their agency), and its victory will come as no surprise. Google has become a verb, and with a downloadable toolbar, pages to search News, Images or discussion groups and a directory (a-la that other search site we no longer like), it's little wonder. 

Check out their Press Center, which is well-organized, clean and easy to navigate (most importantly, their press contacts are easy to find and list direct phone numbers and e-mail addresses!). And you know how Google adjusts their logo on holidays? You can see past holiday logos here. 

Once you've checked out the best sites, come on back; we have an issue this week full of useful information. If you pitch TV or radio, you need to understand day-parts. If you have ever handed a business card to a complete stranger for the purpose of networking, you should read this. Mitchell Friedman offers advice on using writing as a personal development tool, and Bill Frederick discusses the demise of the newspaper.

Last week, we asked you to tell us about your best PR stunts. You sent us some great ones, and you can read about them here.

The helping of PR Soup is small this week (again!), and MediaWatch is all new.

Happy reading!

Several of the articles in this edition came in response to our call for articles. If you would like to contribute, please let us know.