Do you accept the PR Pitch by Twitter Challenge?

You know what, I think my interest in Twitter is bordering on an obsession. This is the third blog post in a row that I've focused on the site and I'm sure it won't be the last!

It's getting to the point that the only time I don't tweet is when I'm asleep although I'm sure it won't be long until some bright spark creates an app that means I can even twitter via my dreams!

On a serious point though, Twitter is proving hugely advantageous. Not only is it improving BusinessZone.co.uk's traffic figures but its positive impact on my role as a journalist can't be questioned.

It's becoming very common, for instance, for news stories to break on Twitter and the times recently when people have alerted me to a story hours after I'd read it in a tweet are too numerous to list.

With all that mind, I've decided to run a little experiment and to the public relations executives reading this blog it's time for you to pay special attention.

The journalist/PR relationship is a strange one. I admit I'm prone to the odd rant following a call from someone pitching me a story which is completely irrelevant to the subjects I write about or far too advertorial to warrant coverage but unfortunately given my job, listening to the occassional pitch which I can do nothing with is a necessary evil.

But PRs, it's time for a change!

I really don't have time to take irrelevent calls but I will read tweets so next Monday and Tuesday - 23rd and 24th February - I will only accept PR pitches via Twitter. That means you have just 140 characters to grab my attention so it had better be good. I will only deal with single tweets so no pitches which expand into multiple updates will be considered.

If you're not on Twitter and you plan on giving me a call, I'd advise registering now and the usernames you need to bear in mind are @BusinessZone and @Dan_Martin. The best stories will get covered and I'll even publish your tweets.

Let the challenge commence!