I think Flo has got a point there. As I understand it, the SMNR is no extension or improvement for the press release. It’s not (primarily) about reaching journalists, but reaching other people, who can establish publicity or are (new) gatekeepers – like bloggers.
Also the thing I like about the SMNR is, that it’s a new way to have something in addition to an old fashioned press release, where you have sometimes two or three pages of unbroken text, which you hope will be copied as much 1:1 as possible. The SMNR is different in it’s approach, as it delivers facts, statements and resources in a different way. So we have to look which tool is better for which goals and target groups.
Also the SMNR may be a good tool to get around those paragraphs and sentences, the marketing and other company departments sometimes “advise” us to include in the press release

I believe your comment was in reference to the claim that the SMR is a beneficial tool because it allows the issuer of the release to provide additional references to journalists. If that’s what you were saying, I wanted to address the point:

Providing necessary reference has always been a part of good press release writing. It’s nothing new, just because they slapped a pretty new name on the template. You were always supposed to include relevant addenda. At the same time, providing too many Web-based references and resources is actually a disservice to your company, news, and release, as you’re exposing journalists to oftentimes more qualified or newsworthy sources for similar information. If you do your job and write an effective news releases, journalists will contact you if they need additional information. But the essence of what they need to know should already be there. If they need to go digging for more information (which can only be biased when background research is instigated by the issuing company and not the journalist anyway), then you’re not doing your job to begin with.

It all goes back to the fact that the social media release is anything but new. If we spent our time learning how to use releases correctly in the first place, they’d have no need to throw a new name on it because they’re touting features we should have already been using anyway.