Cashmore speaking to the crowd at last night's event.

Last night at Edelman’s New York offices, Mashable officially launched Mashable Follow, the site’s “new social layer” that will enable readers to find and follow their favorite topics, share stories to multiple social networks at once and follow other Mashable readers who are of interest, among other features.

Mashable founder Pete Cashmore addressed the crowd in attendance, and noted that the service had already added “thousands of sign ups” within the first few hours of launching.

Read more

In his first byline for the Huffington Post (and first blog post ever?), Goldman Sachs Head of Corporate Communications Lucas van Praag uses the platform to counter a New York Times story, “Testy Conflict With Goldman Helped Push A.I.G. to Edge.”

In a byline titled simply, “Goldman’s Response to the New York Times,” van Praag begins by stating “theories” in the article are “contradictory and many of the supporting ‘facts’ don’t stand up to serious scrutiny.”

He then goes on to specifically address 10 NYT assertions, as he calls them, followed by Goldman’s rebuttal.

Reuter’s Felix Salmon is a fan of the tactic:

A blog entry is pretty much the perfect medium for reacting to a story in the press: you can link to the story in question, quote various bits, and respond to them at whatever length you like. What’s more, from a PR person’s perspective, a blog entry is unfiltered: you don’t have to rely on partisan journalists to communicate what you’re saying in an accurate manner.

We’re curious to get your take on the post and this tactic. Have you employed it with success?