I read a book recently called the Mind in the making by James Harvey Robinson. The author made an interesting point when he said that the time taken by people to form an opinion is actually so short, but the passion with which they defend their opinions is astonishing.
Cold emailing bigger blogs would be the least effective method.
Some places where you can promote your new website are, Small bloggers, Reddit, Indie Hackers.
You can try paid advertising if you can afford it.
You can write engaging Medium articles and leave a link at the end of the article to your site.
You can always do it the old fashioned way, if you can figure out where your target users are, go and physically meet them. :) The best way to promote your site.
Try to figure out a problem you yourself face on a regular basis. That you have a certain depth in understanding your users who will also be facing the similar problem.
Don't worry if the problem seems to general at first. Just keep thinking about it and you will come to something specific, and soon you will have an idea for a product.
Creating something that solves your own problem is generally a good way to start a start-up.
What I was trying to get across that it is quite inspiring that he did not let rejection faze him. Many people get dismayed by their first rejection, which is often the hardest.
I get the point you're making about Netscape's situation though. There is no way they could've foreseen what Musk was going to do.