This is the way to manipulate bloggers to create a kick ass product launch. All of this was coordinated without the help of any PR professional, although Riya CEO Munjal Shah is better than most CEOs at herding us cats:
Then the links start flowing in.
All of this was coordinated to launch at exactly midnight, just as the site went live.
Agree with you that its a perfect launch strategy for startups targeting the tech community and the Bay area but what, I hope, will make Like.com a success is probably even more so the PR tour that Munjal says he’s been doing to for example People magazine. Since the target group is probably not 30+ male in Dockers and blue shirts maybe, although I love the outfit of course. But more so female readers interested in fashion hence the media target should be blogs such as Popsugar and the weekly and monthly fashion magazines.
Riya is getting attention because (if the site lives up the hype) visual search is new and important, not (just) because they placed stories with A-list bloggers.
As a decidedly non-A-list blogger, I was still compelled to write about Munjal’s presentation at Shop.org last month (http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2006/10/10/riya-show-me-more-items-that-look-like-this-one/) . Why? Because his demo was the most interesting thing at the show.
I agree with Godin’s riff this week (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/11/getting_from_he.html) — PR doesn’t drive high-quality growth and awareness, the PR follows from the high-quality and the growth.
Maybe Riya/Like will be the ones to ride visual search to billion dollar valuations, maybe they won’t. But the idea is powerful and will change online retail.
It’s pretty nifty stuff, but i think they have some healthy competition in the form of PIXSTA, the London based company that has launched http://www.chezimelda.com Its David vs. Goliath in terms of funding but from a first glance it seems that David has the most powerful technology (though they clearly need some new graphics!)
It’s a good example but it’s standard to hit bloggers now for most PR firms.
I’m going to write about them on our site this week though. So it works!
Right on the money. This is another shining example of the new media and PR model. You nailed it.
Now if only it would work and do more then womens shoes
Come on – this is the same guy that said he’d rather have Scoble than Walt, so what do you expect than for him to go to Scoble to shoot?
Even Robert that day said it was insane … and it was. Now that he is doing a mainstream product, they’ll crawl to Walt, or to another mainstream press person. Because they need to.
It was always an unbalanced diet, and still is. The flyover states read print, get their news from more than just online. Web 2.0 often forgets that.