The reference to reaching out directly to writers was actually based less on P99T and more on a different startup we used to own, a realtor rating site. In that case, we found a writer for a major newspaper that we wanted to write a story on us --- just looked him up online and called him up --- and pitched the story over the phone. We followed up by sending him a press release we'd written... so we did actually write a press release, we just didn't -- and still haven't -- found it valuable to send it out over the newswire.

Good luck!