We tried to get coverage on TC and Mashable for Twitalbums.com but none listened to us (I lost count how many times I wrote them). I also wrote to The Next Web and nothing. Jolie O'Dell from ReadWriteWeb.com picked up on the story and she did a wonderful job reviewing our startup. The review sent a ton of traffic and gave us a good initial boost. Needles to say we love RWW :-)

+1 for RWW. The quality of comments is much better on RWW, and their coverage is usually more in-depth than either TechCrunch's or Mashable's. With Mashable in particular, updates are so frequent that I don't think you'd stay on the front page very long.

Techcrunch has the most power today. Actually, they pretty much have a monopoly on covering launching startups before anyone else.

So go with TC coverage as exclusive, and then go with more substantial repeat coverage from other places.

[I have been through that discussion with many CEOs who launched with many different strategies - I'm giving you a quick summary of what could be hours of discussions]

Having been first on both sites, I can offer a bit of clarity.

Go with Techcrunch if you want to have VC's and other business's take notice of you. Go with Mashable if you want lots of users to read about your product and actually use it. Techcrunch is written for people in the biz. Mashable is written for people who enjoy using the tools biz guys make.

Also, Readwriteweb is a great blog and will likely still write about you even if they dont get the exclusive. Just make sure you save some info thats "just for them", So dont give the whole kaboodle to mashable/tc.

thats exactly my hypothesis. TC crowd have different usage patterns. i read that Mashable has surpassed TC in traffic or is about to.

In 2008 we sent an email to TechCrunch asking if they wanted an exclusive on our launch. After 2 weeks with no response, we emailed Mashable who promptly responded and wrote an article. The same day the article ran we received a snarky email from TC stating that they expected exclusive coverage and that because Mashable ran us first, TC wasn't going to touch the story. We politely referred them to our original email, they said oops and we all went on with our lives.

I get the impression these days that TC and Mashable aren't super psyched about covering startup launches anymore unless said startup has a pre-established relationship or part of their sponsored events.

If both of them give you the cold shoulder, I'd definitely go for ReadWriteWeb. I'm always impressed by the quality of journalism over there, and I feel that they really value their community and staying true to their focus.

And that "TC won't cover you" stuff, I dunno. If you are getting a lot of buzz, they'll have to cover you eventually. Who's to say either TC or mashable will even honor your exclusive? Chances are they won't even shrug until someone else starts buzzing about it at a lower level. Unless you have a guaranteed home run, I'd play it safe and hit up individual writers, build buzz from the ground up.

>I'd play it safe and hit up individual writers, build buzz from the ground up.

This. The lower tier writers of today are the big cheeses of tomorrow. It often pays dividends in the future to give them exclusives today and make their job a little easier.

Besides, There are quite a few of the bigger named bloggers who subscribe to some smaller name blogs. If your site is good enough, like cream it will eventually float to the top.

You don't rate ReadWriteWeb or The Next Web? Read somewhere that RWW drove more traffic to a startup's website than TC. TNW has grown a ton over the last year.

Anyway, i suggest email them all and see who bites first.

That's bad form if you're negotiating to get an exclusive. You're also less likely to get anyone to cover you if your pitch is general rather than directed at a particular writer or editor.

Possibly, but going with one particular blog could very leave you only getting coverage from that one blog.

If your start-up is exciting enough, emailing them all should have them all racing to write about you first.

If I could choose, Techcrunch, for sure.

Mashable is the obvious choice:

-unbiased coverage -nice people -fair

Techcrunch going by visitor counts has no power anymore.