Why We’re Not a Gadget Site

I hear this a lot in discussions out in the world. People think at first that we’re competing with sites like Engadget (Mobile), Gizmodo, and other sites. People that have pulled up the site know these two types of sites are complimentary, but also certainly not in competition.

Gadget blogs focus on the same part of the brain that is stimulated by violent news, or pornography. The term “porn for nerds” is often batted around for gadget sites, and I tend to agree. Gadget sites rarely see a news story through to completion, simply drive-by coverage with whatever stimulates readers minds.

Our viewership has steadily grown because we don’t do that. We cover phones from the first blip on the radar, to the very last firmware update. Now, I’m not going to argue we’re better, more popular, or anything of the sort. Fox News isn’t going to compare their viewership statistics with that of Playboy (or, for a more apples-to-apples comparison, FoxNews.com versus Playboy.com). Pop culture means they often cover the same people, but in vastly different ways.

Subscribing to a gadget site isn’t dirty, or even negative behavior. But, people that haven’t yet tuned into PhoneNews.com tend to see these two forms of coverage as similar. Quite frankly, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Thankfully, RSS feed readers allow for a virtually boundless amount of feeds, so, you can have your cake and eat it too.