After reading your article on PR, I was wondering if you still see any value in trying to court print publications. You spent $16,000 a month on your PR. Would you advise people to hire PR firms today?<p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html</a>
It's still valuable, especially for larger companies, but no longer critical for newly founded startups. You probably shouldn't pay for PR till you have enough money that it doesn't hurt.
Surely it depends on the audience. When we get the resources we need, we'll certainly use PR -- the people most in need of our service are possibly a hundred times more likely to read the Sunday paper than to browse Slashdot.
I was interviewed on a nationally syndicated radio show about my product and barely saw a blip in traffic...<p>I'd say it totally depends on your audience/product. There are plenty of people outside of our Web 2.0 echo chamber who pay a lot more attention to old media than new media.<p>Profile your buyers/users, understand where they spend their time, and make sure that you've got good visibility there.