My company has developed an Ajax, rich client web based application
which falls into the web 2.0 category of online web based services.
Many of the up and coming web 2.0 companies launch their sites as a
"private BETA" release and manage to generate suitable hype to get
people interested and signing up to use the service.

We are looking for the following answers
1. Ideas for generating hype excluding "paid for" advertising and
search engine submissions.
2. Web 2.0 bloggers with a high volume of readers, to whom we can get
articles published with.

Our online service is targeted at families and maried couples.

Regards
Chris

Hey Chris,

You should definitly start with contacting the following blogs: 

Michael Arrignton (www.techcrunch.com)

  - You submit your company profile at this link:   
    http://www.techcrunch.com/submit-profile

The Great Om Malik (http://gigaom.com/)
  - Contact Page: http://gigaom.com/contact

Planet Ajaxian(www.ajaxian.com)

Richard MacManus (http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer)

Pete Cashmore (www.mashable.com)
  - Email: petecashmore@gmail.com 

Emily Chang eHub (http://www.emilychang.com/go/ehub)
  - http://www.emilychang.com/go/ehub/submit

Solution Watch (http://www.solutionwatch.com)
  - http://www.solutionwatch.com/submit-solution/

Most of the blogs at the Web 2.0 Workgroup (http://www.web20workgroup.com)/

These blogs specialize in reviewing Web 2.0 companies and startups,
and from the comments volume one can tell they have high traffic. They
can make a review/PR of your project and definitly help direct traffic
to you.

Another viral marketing opportunties may be the bookmarking services
like: Digg.com, del.icio.us...etc

This a list of all social bookmarking sites you can submit your Beta to:
http://www.econsultant.com/web2/social-bookmarking-services.html


I hope this helped and wish you guys best of luck on your project.


N.B: Posting a link here is a good start ;D

Regards,
Mohamed El-Kamony
18 April 2006