If you’re like me, one side of you wants to obsessively check Techcrunch and/or Techmeme and the other side is too busy worrying about having your hair on fire. So occasionally something really important hits the Internets and you miss out on the chance to react (comment, blog, etc).

The solution - I created a set of Twitter users or each of the blogs that I want to stay on top of and I’m using Twitterfeed to feed the headlines into them as soon as there’s a new post.  So all you need to do is follow these Twitter users for headlines and you’ll always be (almost) first to see the latest posts:

• TechCrunch - tc2tw
• Techmeme - tm2tw
• Mashable - mash2tw
• ReadWriteWeb - rww2tw
• Lifehacker - hack2tw
• BoingBoing - bb2tw
• Engadget - en2tw
• Gizmodo - giz2tw
• Ars Technica - ars2tw
• Scobelizer - sco2tw
• VentureBeat - vb2tw

I may still be a buck short, but at least I won’t be a day late.

If you’ve been following my PR4Priates blog for any amount of time, you know I write all about the nitty gritty of helping entrepreneurs do their own PR, so hopefully my answer is obvious– not necessarily.  But take the test to find out.

ReadWriteWeb posed a different question today: Does Good Tech Need PR at all? Yes, you absolutely need some level of PR.  What RWW suggests is that there’s an inverse relationship between how compelling your idea/technology is and how much PR you’re going to have to do.

The fantasy world scenario is that you release your product on Monday, get some initial coverage on a few blogs, more bloggers find it, you hit Techmeme by the weekend, and then before you know it Walt Mossberg (WSL) and David Pogue (NYT) are calling begging for exclusive interviews.  Then the press is calling non-stop.  Before you know it, you’re joking around with Leno in the Green Room.

Ahem, the more likely scenario is that your technology is great but needs some explanation.  Nobody is begging for an exclusive and getting coverage requires actual sustained effort.  So then the question turns to whether you can sustain the effort yourself, or whether you need an agency.

Here’s a quick self test of whether you should consider getting a PR agency:

1. Can your technology/solution be understood in a 3 second sound bite?
2. Do you know who should be covering your story, like which specific blogs and reporters?
3. Does your story lend itself to being told?  Does it have a “hook” such as controversy, a great solution to well understood widely felt pain, or famous founders?
4. Does one of your founders communicate well?  Do you have someone who can communicate with the press, comment on blogs, and whose email messages don’t consistently elicit cringing?  And does this founder have time to handle communicating?
5. You don’t have ready access to a cheap, skilled PR agent with many contacts in your industry?
6. Is your company’s current bank balance below $1M?

If you answer “no” to more than two of these questions, you may want to consider using a well-connected, hopefully reasonably-priced, PR agent in your industry.  Obviously for bootstrappers this may still be a non-starter, so the job (like taking out the trash and watering the plants) falls to one of the founders.  But this little test gives you an idea about whether doing your own PR presents so many obstacles that your time would be better invested in other things.

For tech-related founders, beware of your natural instinct to over-invest your time in your product and technology.  Getting the word out about your company is one of your most important jobs, so don’t neglect it regardless of whether an agency is the right path.

Lastly, Scoble argues that you shouldn’t do any outbound PR at all– you should build something so awesome that your beta testers become your evangelists and are inspired to contact their trusted press contacts on your behalf.  Steve Rubel agrees. I’m not wild about this kind of hit-or-miss approach.  Most Type-A entrepreneurs won’t be either.

What are you supposed to do when your beta is almost over and you have no coverage?  Invest more in the product?  Pray? No, it’s time to take matters into your own hands.  Fire up the outbound engine… post to your blog, Twitter, comment on relevant blogs (without plugging or pushing your company), and, ahem, send friendly, relevant email to bloggers and reporters who should be writing about you because you’ve been following them AND built some kind of relationship over time.  Techcrunch also has some great suggestions about how this actually works.  It can even be fun!  I don’t mind trying the Scoble-Rubel build-pray-discover strategy, but it might not work for you, and you can’t just sit there doing nothing or build your product forever.

We’re a startup Internet company based in Austin, Texas.  While we are not talking about our business much yet (except to say it’s really cool and if you work in the area of Internet Marketing, you’re going to LOVE it), here’s a quick rundown on our founders.

• Paul May, CEO - Paul was employee #1 at Support.com (SPRT) and has held senior roles in several Austin area startups, most recently at Alterpoint.
• Jeremy Bencken, Chairman - Jeremy co-founded ApartmentRatings.com and TenantMarket.com which were acquired by Internet Brands (INET).
• Randy Hammelman, CTO - Randy founded Conducive Consulting, a custom software development services business which has served a number of Austin companies.

We’re also excited to have great people advising us, including Pam O’Neal, VP of Marketing at BreakingPoint Systems, and Jack Long, founder of Chairman of PeopleAdmin and Master Teacher with the Acton MBA program.

While our product is still baking, we’re going to be blogging about issues relating to Internet Marketing, with a special emphasis on Blogger Relations, SEO, and PR.

I just got an email from a friend who founded a video-sharing startup.  He wrote:

Question for you.  We are announcing the winners of our contest tomorrow and we are going to try to get some press in the local markets of the winners.  So we’ve drafted a press release, prepared a story line and a list of targets.  My question is whether it is worth it to use PR Newswire or something similar to put it out on the wire, vs. just sending alone ourselves.

Here’s my response:

In my experience, it is not worth it to send a release via PRNewswire, assuming you have a robust list of target reporters and you send them each a personalized note with your press release pasted at the bottom.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a press hit from using the newswire, even when we paid the big money for US1 distribution.  We got plenty of press, but it always came from directly emailing the right reporters.

One suggestion, have the release come from someone on staff other than you, but have them offer, “If you have questions our would like to interview Widgt’s CEO, Blah Blah, you can reach him at blah@widgt.com or by phone at 512-555-1212.”

For some reason I think this comes across better– I’ve seen reporters criticize CEO’s who do their own outreach (”he must not have very much to do if he has time to email reporters”), but they also like to get direct access to the CEO  (”I hate it when a PR thinks they can be the gate keeper to the executive suite.”).

If you want to be a real bulldog, you can have your staff follow-up with a phone call.

Of course, there are other ways to promote this– post the news on your blog, pitch the story to local bloggers you find on Technorati, and don’t forget to pitch TV stations (local morning news shows are always trying to fill content) and radio.  If you think your winners would agree, you should offer to make them available for tv and radio interviews.  And since you have video, consider cutting a short video of the winners’ content and offering it to the tv station.