Cision is the dominant PR software platform — PR Newswire, Brandwatch, CisionOne. Owned by Platinum Equity since 2020. Vocus, PRWeb, and HARO inside the lineage.
Peter Shankman built Help A Reporter Out (HARO) in 2008 — the single piece of infrastructure that connected the global press to the world's sources for sixteen years. Cision shut it down in 2024. Nothing has replaced it at the same scale.
The sixteen-year evolution from Vocus social media monitoring in 2010 to AI Communications measurement in 2026 — what each era contributed, what stayed constant, and why Citation Share measurement is the new foundational measurement question.
