I upvoted your comment but I doubt we'll stop seeing the TC announcements. There's probably an unspoken quid pro quo agreement that TC covers the launches in exchange for exclusivity and traffic from HN.

Actually all the other TC-like sites will also cover a launch in return for an exclusive. The reason most people go with TC is simply that it's the default.

Others would cover for exclusivity but I'm assuming you're going with TC because they're the most popular for your target audience.

I mistakenly included exclusivity as unspoken when that's likely a standard agreement when trying to get a story covered.

Linking to tcfast.com (in HN style!) would be kind of mean to techcrunch, though :)

Good point. It would be nice if Y Combinator (ycombinator.com) has some kind of semi-standard way of making these announcements then. Couldn't the companies just self-post here on HN using a common format? The next level would be a special type of posting like the help wanted posts.

They could just use their own blogs + HN instead of herding the traffic through AOL and only getting the scraps.

I'm surprised that it's still even worth startups announcing their launch on TC, especially those with YC backing.