Engadget

Engadget was co-founded by former Gizmodo technology weblog editor and co-founder, Peter Rojas. Engadget is a member of Weblogs, Inc., a blog network with over 75 weblogs including Autoblog and Joystiq and formerly including Hack-A-Day. Weblogs Inc. was purchased by AOL in 2005. Engadget's managing editor is Ryan Block.

Launched in March 2004, Engadget is updated multiple times a day with articles on gadgets and consumer electronics. It also posts popular rumours about the technological world, plus a weekly podcast, the Engadget Podcast that covers tech and gadget news stories that happened during the week.

Since its founding, dozens of writers have written for or contributed to Engadget, Engadget Mobile and Engadget HD, including high profile bloggers, industry analysts, and professional journalists. These writers include Jason Calacanis, Paul Boutin, Phillip Torrone, and Susan Mernit.

Engadget has been nominated for numerous awards, including a 2004 Bloggie for Best Technology Weblog, and 2005 Bloggies for Best Computers or Technology Weblog and Best Group Weblog; Engadget won Best Tech Blog in the 2004 and 2005 Weblog Awards.

Gmail, Google's webmail service, as well as many other RSS readers, has included Engadget as a default RSS feed, pulling the latest articles which appear at the top of all user's mailboxes.

To extend readership, the blog is available in several languages including Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese (traditional and simplified). As the blog continues to gain popularity around the world, the available languages will most likely increase.

Engadget was one of the first places woot.com advertised its site, and provided a large customer base for the then small startup company.

The Engadget podcast was launched in October 2004, hosted by Phillip Torrone. He was the host for the first 22 episodes of the podcast at which point Eric Rice took over. Eric Rice is known for his own podcast, called The Eric Rice Show and has also produced podcasts for Weblogs Inc. Eric hosted and produced 4 episodes of the podcast for Engadget until the show was taken over by Peter Rojas and Ryan Block. After about twelve episodes of both hosting and producing (episode 38,) Engadget hired podcast producer Randall Bennett, who worked as Engadget, and Weblogs, Inc.'s rich media producer till May of 2006.

The topic of discussion for the podcast is technology related and closely linked to events that have happened during the week in the world of technology. The show generally lasts from between 30 minutes and an hour. The show is normally weekly, however there are events that disrupt this occasionally. When events such as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) come around each year the podcast has been known to be broadcasts daily during the event to cover the latest news on gadgets. More recently special versions of the podcast have been made including the Engadget lovecast and a listeners voicemail podcast.

More recently the podcast has been sponsored. Organisations sponsor the podcast in return for a mention in the show. The host of the podcast will typically mention the sponsor during the beginning, middle and end of the show. Sponsors have included Best Buy, Nikon and most recently Castrol.

The Engadget podcast is available as a subscription through iTunes and as an RSS feed. Alternatively, it can be downloaded directly from the site in either MP3, Ogg, AAC or m4b format. The m4b version features images related to the current topic of discussion and can be displayed in iTunes or on a compatible player.

In early 2006 Engadget reported that they were victims of their likeness being stolen and used as a store name at a mall in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, however, they stated they would not be taking any action. The store has since changed its name (or possibly shutdown and a new store opened with a new name).

Engadget hosts meetups for readers in different cities. They are completely free to attend and prizes are handed out. Previous locations include New York, Iceland, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Amsterdam, Merced, Seattle, and Boston.

Part IV - Seattle, Washington Sponsors: Griffin, Microsoft, Nintendo, Samsung, and T-Mobile.

• Peter Rojas
• Ryan Block
• Thomas Ricker
• Evan Blass
• Paul Miller

• Donald Melanson
• Nilay Patel
• Darren Murph
• Chris Ziegler
• Ross Rubin (Writes the weekly Switched On column)
• Richard Lawler
• Ben Drawbaugh
• Conrad Quilty-Harper (Joined - August 23rd, 2006)
• Joshua Topolsky
• Matt Burns

• Benjamin Heckendorn (Joined - October 10, 2006)
• Mark Weber Tobias

• Marc Perton
• Phillip Torrone
• Barb Dybwad
• Katie Fehrenbacher

In March 2006, DAPreview, a website about digital audio players, noted that Engadget used a photo that had originally been taken by DAPreview, and then removed attribution by cropping the DAPreview logo off [1]. Engadget's managing editor Ryan Block agreed that the photo had been copied and cropped, stated that it had been a mistake, and apologized and restored the image's attribution [2].

In May 2007, Engadget published a story based on an email sent to Apple employees announcing that the company was delaying the launches of both the iPhone and OS X Leopard. The story resulted in a 3% drop in Apple's share price. [3] Less than 20 minutes later the story was retracted after the email was discovered to have been a hoax perpetuated on Apple employees. Apple's shares eventually recovered, and Ryan Block apologized for the mistake [4].

• Engadget
• Engadget HD (Formerly HDBeat)
• Engadget Mobile
• List of Editors as of January 13, 2007

• Gizmodo
• Consumer Electronics Daily News

Weblogs, Inc

• Engadget HD
• Engadget Mobile
• AdJab
• Autoblog
• Autoblog Green
• TV Squad