When it comes to promoting a service or site, the "smartest" startups will contact the big names to get their start. This leaves a very wide gap open for the taking for smaller blogs. However, for all it’s worth, is it really necessary for A-listers to get first dibs?
   

A-List Benefits

There’s no denying or arguing about how beneficial it can be to get A-listers to use and talk about your product. TechCrunch can send you plenty of traffic. ReadWriteWeb will inspire great conversations and debates about your product on top of great traffic. If Scoble praises your product, expect plenty to give it a try. Lots of users, plenty of traffic, who can argue with that?
   

Current Trends

Some of the hottest products that I know of, were not discovered by A-listers first. In fact, the majority were probably discovered by Louis Gray before his current success. Let’s look at these services, shall we?
   

Friendfeed

Louis invited me to Friendfeed when I was a lot more unknown and so was Friendfeed. Now, Scoble can’t stop drooling over it. Friendfeed is all over the place now thanks to Louis.

Disqus

Steven Hodson of WinExtra introduced me to the Disqus commenting system back in March. I haven’t regretted the switch one bit and Disqus is spreading like wildfire! It’s definitely replacing a lot of standard commenting systems, especially on WordPress self-hosted blogs. And all this did not depend on the help of your usual suspects.
  

ReadBurner

Who’d I hear it from first? Louis.
  

RSSmeme

See ReadBurner.

Toluu

See RSSmeme.

Still Want To Give It All To The A-Listers?

Pageviews are money. Users are money. I understand that. However, having a handful of talented bloggers with a small yet loyal following can be a lot more beneficial than the larger but fickle crowd of the "A-list". With that being said, here’s an interesting tweet: