Engadget is a multilingual technology blog network with daily coverage of gadgets and consumer electronics. Engadget operates ten blogs, four of which are written in English and six have international versions with independent editorial staff.
History
Engadget was founded by former Gizmodo technology weblog editor and co-founder Peter Rojas. Engadget was the largest blog in Weblogs, Inc. a blog network with more than 75 weblogs including Autoblog and Joystiq, which previously included Hackaday. Weblogs Inc. was acquired by AOL in 2005.
Launched in March 2004, Engadget is updated several times a day with articles about gadgets and consumer electronics. It also publishes rumors about the world of technology, often expresses opinion in its stories, and produces a weekly Engadget podcast that covers technology and gadget news that happened during the week.
On December 30, 2009, Engadget released its first mobile app for iPhone and iPod Touch.
On the night of July 15, 2013, Tim Stevens stepped down as editor-in-chief, appointing Mark Perton of gdgts as interim executive editor. In November 2013, a significant redesign was launched that merged gdgt’s features into Engadget, such as the device database and summary reviews. The changes were intended to transform Engadget into a more comprehensive consumer electronics resource, similar to CNET and Consumer Reports, aimed at the “first user in all of us.”
As of April 2014, Michael Gorman was the editor-in-chief with Christopher Trout as executive editor.
On December 2, 2015, Engadget unveiled another redesign as well as a new editorial direction with a focus on broader topics impacted by technology; Gorman explained that “Engadget’s core audience – people who are very involved in the industry – pay close attention to that, but the new editorial direction is really about making it accessible to people outside of that realm.”
Controversy
On June 21, 2014, actor William Shatner raised questions about several Engadget editorials and their “confirmed” status on Twitter. It started when the site’s social media editor, John Colucci, tweeted a celebration that the site had reached over 1 million Twitter followers. In addition to Colucci, Shatner also accused several junior staffers of being “nobodies,” unlike some of his fellow actors who did not have that distinction. Shatner claimed that Colucci and the team mocked him when he gave a text interview to Mashable. More than a month later, Shatner continued to discuss the issue on his Tumblr page, to which Engadget responded by defending his team and discussing the controversy surrounding social media verification.