TWiST, Ryan Block & Peter Rojas of gdgt

Posted by SRSimko on September 28, 2009 · View Comments

About gdgt (like “gadget” — or g-d-g-t) is a new kind of technology site — a social gadget platform that enables you to connect with the community through your gadgets, and connect with your gadgets through the community. It’s a place for you to engage with your devices and hang out with people who are as passionate about their gear as you are.

gdgt is all about providing you with useful, contextual information — both from here and around the web — to help you get more out of the products you already own, as well as help you discover that next great device to add to your collection. We hope that gdgt will be the last personal technology destination you’ll need, and the place to call home for you and your gadgets.

Want to create your own gadget list and start connecting? Go here to sign up for an account.

Ryan Block & Peter Rojas

Interview:

Peter was friends with Nick Denton of Gawker and while having a drink they talked about blogging as a business and no one at the time was really covering tech. and gadgets (2001ish), so they created Gizmoto.

Peter and Jason’s connection was the movie High and Low, Peter mentioned it in a post and Jason commented, which helped create the relationship that led to Engadget. Jason offered to make Peter a partner but leaving a successful blog was very risky. He knew his vison was different than Nick Denton’s he wanted to build a team and blog full time. Peter after some soul searching realized being a partner was more compelling than being a paid employee. Looking back Peter didn’t think of himself as an entrepreneur until well within Engadget, his dreams were always to be just an editor.

Ryan also took huge risks he was working (and making more money) for a CMS company, left and worked for free for a couple months and took less pay because he believed in Engadget.

3 things made Peter reach out to Ryan:

- - Ryan was a creative writing major
  - Tech. knowledge
  - NY attitude (combination of skepticism and enthusiasm)

They really believe in the team blogging approach, many people don’t realize the strategy that goes into a successful blog.

How is gdgt different? It’s not a blog, but a site about gadgets. They wanted to have a site that lists what you have and what you want in a community (crowd source) type atmosphere. Whereby people create relationships through what gadgets they own. One surprising use is more and more people are listing gadgets they have used in the past. Jason comments that it is a great resource if you are having a problem with a gadget. He gives an example of his Mabook Air not streaming video well, he went to the site and someone else had already brought the problem to Apple’s attention.

Peter comments, that they feel like they have tapped into something (similar to the early Engadget days) and they have a clear vision of where they are headed but understand they have a lot of work to do.

Once they launched a lot of their planning went out the window, it helped them focus on what was working and what wasn’t.

What is the big lesson that they learned now that they have their own business? Ryan, At Weblogsinc you took care of the editors making sure they had what they needed. They feel the users are their editors, without them they won’t succeed. Peter, find people you trust and don’t micromanage them, let them do their thing. Offer a good quality of life, have fun at work, dinners, LAN games, etc.

Twitter Questions: (54 min.)

Will gdgt ever have a blog on it? Not in the traditional blog sense, it doesn’t fit into their vision.

Were you guys ever worried about not getting the posts right at that fast pace, or did you just count on editing them after being posted? Peter comments the pace was intense at one point he was doing 25 to 30 posts a day, he worried about accuracy but much of what they did was self correcting, in that, the commenters helped correct mistakes.

Will gdgt ever offer an option to nuke the ads? They have never found a site where that really works, they wish they didn’t need them but the current business model realities require them. They try focus on quality ads that don’t have annoying features.

Interesting References or Quotes: