The results are in and 50.6 percent of respondents to our PRNewser Poll think that creative alternatives that Google and Zagat used to announce their acquisition news were “great.” We saw lots of people giving the creative “review” and haiku tweet the thumbs up and otherwise endorsing it on Twitter.

But interestingly, nearly 38 percent were simply neutral about the alterna-releases. For all the never-ending calls for the end of the press release, it looks like many people still like a well-written release that gets to the heart of the news at hand, including journalists. An overwhelming number of them said in a survey this summer that they appreciate a “targeted” release, and we offered a few tips to achieve that here.

A little creativity goes a long way to driving attention and media hits when making a big announcement. But even as people continue to rail against them and offer ways to improve them (don’t get so “excited”), press releases aren’t going anywhere just yet.

[image via]

Google made headlines last week when it announced it was acquiring restaurant guide Zagat.

Rather than go the traditional press release route, both companies decided to have a little fun with the announcement: Zagat wrote a Zagat-style review of the news (with lots of quotation marks) and Google’s Marissa Mayer said she wrote a Twitter haiku with the news after her press release was called “boring.”

The debate over the death of the press release rages on even as the physical form and various uses of it continue to change. The New York Times says the most creative alternatives are coming from tech companies, but clever announcement-making is something that lots of companies are using in order to grab some attention in an attention-deficient world.

Click through for today’s poll, which takes a closer look at these two methods from Google and Zagat. Polls are open until Friday at noon so be sure to vote.

Read more