My experience has been that ereleases.com is a cost effective vehicle for getting the word out (I have no relationship to them other than as a customer). Part of the variance our different outcomes may be due to market focus and differences in content of the release.
Mass e-mailing reporters you have no relationship with strikes me as a poor way to make a first impression: I would spend the same time cultivating relationships with a key set of reporters who write for an audience likely to be interested in your company or product.
The risk to me in the blog post is that you are suggesting to technical startup entrepreneurs that they can code their way out of developing some necessary relationships with bloggers and reporters.
