• decline comment until the day of the announcement
• put out the news release on PRNewswire
• pray

Obviously, these changes are going to wreck havoc with the way public companies interact with the public. Remember those "quiet period" rules before the IPO? Quiet is now the rule, period.

It's impossible to determine the depth of the Reg FD effect, but early signs point to a world where companies will issue even more press releases to make sure they are in compliance with the law, where executive speeches will never discuss a company's future products or strategies or even vision, where rumors reign supreme, and where "the media" is less about news and more about analysis, opinion, speculation, conjecture and wishful thinking...kinda like Wall Street analysts with bigger amplifiers.

Under any circumstances, the most important thing a company can do right now is update the news section of its web site. Is it ready to handle the inevitable flood of requests for more information after every press release hits the wire? More importantly, does it accurately reflect the company's current positioning, vision and messages? Can visitors find more information about an announcement quickly and efficiently?

In many ways, Reg FD is a boon for companies who want to tell their own story their own way. By distributing a "just the facts" news release as baitware, a company can attract thousands of visitors to its site to get more information about an announcement, and then use that opportunity to deliver the company's core messages through the myriad technologies available through the Internet, rather than hope the media will do the job for them.

For example, instead of trying to get the CEO onto CNBC to talk about an announcement, stream a 10-minute interview segment on the corporate web site. Use the Internet to webcast once-private conference calls on the day of an announcement. On the morning of an announcement, put company representatives online to answer email questions, or even instant messages, in real time. Rip out those stupid pictures of smiling people on the company home page, and redesign it to be a corporate news outlet that gets updated three times a day. Let's face it, you can't wait for the media to write your story anymore-they're too busy cruising the chat rooms for investor reactions-so companies have to do it themselves.

And speaking of chat rooms, company message forums on sites such as Yahoo! and Motley Fool are already cesspools of scurrilous rumors, gossip, innuendo and outright espionage. In the wake of Reg FD, investors will flock to them for the latest "news." Who's monitoring these for your clients in real time?

Oh yeah, and do all the employees know that they can't say anything to anyone about what they're doing at work until the company has officially announced it?

Will the SEC force a newspaper to disclose sources if important company news is leaked to the media before the official announcement? How will reporters confirm rumors if no one at a company can comment? Will it run with the rumor? Worse, what if an account executive at the company's PR firm is cited as the source?

And you thought you were going home at five...

What do you think of Reg FD? Have you discussed it with your clients? Your supervisors? What will be the effect of Reg FD overseas? Will private companies gain an advantage because they're not subject to the same regulations as public ones? Send your comments to mainmail@mainsail.com and we'll address them in the next exciting episode of Main Mail.