If you are featured somewhere, it's easy to post that article onto HN and reddit (or get it posted). Then you need to hope someone notices. Tweets from people with followers tend to help too. Once a story gains a certain critical mass, it will grow itself. It will have "gone viral".
The big thing here is that you need to be doing something that's interesting enough to be newsworthy, or you need to be someone who is interesting enough that what you're doing becomes newsworthy by association. The rapportive guys? They had a fantastic idea that /one/ person in the news industry got excited about - who helped to win other people over, and they had a response. My point: is your product good enough to get people excited? What is the power of the intersection of that set? That's what you need for press coverage.
. Twitter and Facebook - Open a twitter and facebook company account. Invite all your friends and colleagues. Follow interesting people (blogger and tech leader). Most importantly: don't spam, but engage in conversations.
. Blog - Obviously, you need a blog. Don't make it a boring marketing blog. Keep a personal voice. Talk about your experience building the product/company. Share advices.
. YouTube - Upload screencasts of your product
. Conferences - That's the best place to meet bloggers. Hang around with your company (funny) t-shirt, hat, something that attract the attention of the people. That's a good ice-breaker to start talking to people.
. Startup Competitions - That's the best way to go to techcrunch or important blogs. Participate in startup competition. You don't need to win; just with the participation you'll see the name of your company in the major blogs.
All these thing won't probably be enough to be featured on the NYT, but they will certainly spread out the name of your company/product. At least, it worked quite well in my case.
I based my strategy off of this post: http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2008/08/05/startup-marketing-ad...
It's a must read.