Remember the days when a company could craft a press release and time its distribution for just the right moment to achieve maximum value? The carefully-honed statement could go out just as the markets close, just before they open, on a quiet weekend when it’ll get more play, or during a news-heavy period when nobody will notice. Timing was everything. It’s nostalgic to look back on those bygone days of, oh, last year.

The folks over at AskJeeves probably had timing in mind when they set tomorrow for the announcement of its purchase of Bloglines. But Mary Hodder caught wind of the deal and ran it last Friday in her Napsterization blog, and the rest of the blogosphere went wild.

The acquisition is still only a rumor, since neither company has confirmed or denied it. We can assume it’s true, if the evidence means anything. Do a search of blogs from the AskJeeves blog, and the results come up in Bloglines. That’s a pretty cozy relationship.

Still, when the word gets out ahead of your well-thought-out statement, unpleasant things happen. People react differently than they might if they had read your statement which, if produced with the help of good counsel, proactively address such concerns. For example, CBS Marketwatch’s Frank Barnako reports that A-list blogger Russell Beattie produced a vulgar four-word warning to AskJeeves not to make any changes to the service. ““I use it constantly and incessantly and if it went away or was changed drastically, I would be very unhappy,” he wrote. Of course, plans for change (or no change) may well have been part of the statement AskJeeves planned to make and Beattie’s concerns may never have surfaced.

Is it fair that companies can no longer plan for the strategic release of information? Is it right that bloggers can run with what they’ve got regardless of the upside or downside for other parties? It’s not about right and fair. It’s just what it is. Companies need to understand the new reality: Release your information as soon as it’s ready or somebody else will release it for you. Waiting five minutes may be too late.