I worked for a very early stage startup that ended up getting press from WSJ, TechCrunch, etc but I had no visibility into the process. Can someone who has received similar press comment on how they managed it? Is it similar to OP's article or did you have connections?
Anyone suggest the best place to find a comprehensive list of online publications with both traffic numbers, demographic info, and general subject matter covered?
Cision is the gold standard for this...it's the leading PR/communications media database that lets you search by contact name, location, beat, publication title, etc. Alternatives include Vocus and Meltwater
Christina Farr (KQED, former VentureBeat journalist) gave a talk on how to get good press coverage.
The main takeaway is to find someone at Venture Beat (or Fast Company, WSJ etc.) who is interested in the that industry. Her main focus is Health, and she would be significantly more likely to respond to a personally written email on a Health startup. Also, don't send out mass email blasts to journalists.
I figured the company would get more traffic by someone as large as Fast Company. Looking at the metrics included from OP it looks like it was less than the front page of Hacker News.
