The winners of Engadget's Five Days of Holiday giveaways!
By Ryan Block 
posted December 22nd 2005 5:35PM
posted December 22nd 2005 5:35PM
Day 1: We'll help you switch wireless carriers
Samsung A680 from Sprint - SebS's nightmarish tale of number porting and missing SMSs. Yikes, we feel your pain, man.
LG VX8100 from Verizon - NitroNeo friend to the community and rural volunteer firefighter's gonna get a phone upgrade so he can save lives
Unlocked Motorola RAZR V3 - Georgia's take on The Night Before Christmas is rather amazing
Day 2: Listen to the Podcast to win an i-mate SP5m
Rich S. emailed in within ten minutes of our podcast airing! Well done, old boy.
Day 3: Xbox 360 E3 faceplates, Kameo, and a bunch of Live subscriptions!
Grand prize - Maurizio L.
Second place - Rob L.
Runners up - Adam K., Cameron C., Chris C., Matt D., Jesse D., Justin G.
Day 4: Guess what we're giving away!
Traver R. guessed it correctly, it was a Sidekick II Mr. Cartoon Edition
Day 5: Convince us to give you an HTC Universal
This is the one that held us up -- you guys submitted an unreal amount of entries to day 5's contest. So many were just downright amazing (and we'll be rolling a highlights reel very soon), but we had to pick a winner and anchorman Kirk Yuhnke managed to completely convince us to give him the HTC Universal. You positively must download his video, it's really that good. [WMV, 3MB]
Thanks again to everyone who entered, and happy holidays!
Email the dude...let him know that you think:
kirk.e.yuhnke@abc.com
Ok, let me address some complaints. For the record: I referred to him as "(fake)" -- in parenthesis, mind you -- because this was obviously a fake news report, and he was obviously hamming it up (I've since taken it out to clarify the point that we knew he's a real achorman). This was fake the way John Stewart always calls the Daily Show "fake news," you follow? We judged this contest based on merit and creativity, not on production, resources, means, or his profession.
As for his profession, I don't see why that matters. He took something he was good at and applied it to this contest. If a gadget blogger from another site wrote something like Ross Rubin's Slight Before Christmas or The Maven (http://www.engadget.com/2004/12/29/switched-on-the-slight-before-christmas/ or http://www.engadget.com/2005/10/26/switched-on-turns-one-the-maven/) should they be disqualified because they're just doing something creative that also aligns with what they do for a living? That logic is totally flawed. He had an idea and executed it well.
What's more, Mr. Yuhnke let us know that outside having a friend at work do the filming (which he'd have to, of course) and borrowing the news animation at the beginning of the clip (which could have probably just as easily been obtained via creative commons), he did the graphics, editing, and production himself on his home PC. But even if he did not, he would not be disqualified. There was no rule saying that more than one person couldn't win the prize together.
Basically you guys need to chill out. I know you wanted this prize really bad, but we looked at EVERY SINGLE entry submitted within the alloted time frame, and this one was in our opinion the best. Sorry if any of you have a difficult time accepting this, but he won fair and square.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....... I thought I would be the winner for sure......... after reading all the lame entries in the comments......... alas it was a trap!!!! congrats kirk.... enjoy the universal...... I still think mine was pretty good though...... -_-
still... thanks peter & ryan
Hey #48
He posted the email address on his web site. Anyone could have found it.
It is on about 10 ABC sites as well as his own.
All I did was use Google.
it was a grat idea... if somone else with less equip did it they would of won...
Wait a minute....
Can we get a role call from the Flint area?
I'm one!
I have a Question. While I highly doub ti, Did I win? As I entered in the Xbox 360 one, and My Name is Matt D. But im not sure if i might have deleted the email thinking it was spam.
While I HIGHLY doub it, I would like to know
Well done, Ryan. There's nothing like blasting tons of readers' opinions in order to get that slick gear into those slick manicured hands. I guess Kirk'll have quite a story to break these days... nothing like controversy to boost a media career. And I'm soooo certain that engadget will be mentioned as well. If I were you, I'd try to a) control Kirk b) somehow appease the masses. You guys rule, so now... RULE. Either despotically ("he won, so chill out"), regally ("here's a hello-kitty mp3-player for the runner up") or democratically ("readers vote").
The dude deserves it. Plain and simple. He was brilliant to use the resources at his disposal; he earned the Universal.
And I totally believe that he did the graphics and stuff (save the title sequence) on his home PC. It doesn't take that much technical expertise to put "live" in the corner. And it was creative - get beyond the fact that you didn't win.
It isn't that hard to make something like that in Adobe Premiere, probably about a half an hour of editing, if he knows what he is doing.
I wanted to win
Can you post a mpeg version?
I can't view wma's on linux (i don't have the codecs)
Also, whats the new stars thing next to the comments?
Did anyone like mine? I thought it was a real contender! EngadgetMan - The Movie!
http://deming.us/engadget/
I knew that music at the beginning sounded familiar at the beginning. Saw the 12 in the background and then he mentioned Flint. Hah! However much equipment he had, he still had to put all that together, likely on his own. Excellent work!
Greetings from Swartz Creek (near Flint), MI.
Hey I didn't even enter the contest so I'm an unbiased, independent observer and I think that K.Y. (hehehe) doesn't deserve this. It wasn't that convincing. OMG, a misused cell phone found on the ground. What shall we do??? And we should give a really nice phone to a "gadget abuser?" That just doesn't make sense. K.Y. didn't ask for the phone he just asked some samiritan to donate it to this abuser. Guess what, I was the one who abused that phone so therefore I should get that phone.
Congrats to all! What a video! Wow....
Do I need to write a "thank you" poem now? OMG OMG OMG I cannot BELIEVE that I won, Gadget Girl Georgia finally got over her streak of bad luck and WON something. AMAZING. Thanks you guys. Can I have a job too???
~G
Hey, all of you complaining about this guy winning hold up a sec. Some of us who work in TV are geeks too. Its what we do for a living, and so those resources are whats at hand. No different from anyone else - see gadget, want gadget, do anything to get gadget. :)
Brilliant friends of mine at work did a full studio shoot and post on a video to submit for TLC's Junkyard Wars, including fairly fancy intro profiling the applicants. They got pens, I think. And a fancy keychain.
This geek just happens to be news talent. Rare, but ok - sure :) Congrats buddy, well done. Next time, feed your graphics guy more beer. He could have been a little more creative without investing too much time :P
Cheers.
Congrats to the winner. Don't let the sore losers get to you.
I would like to take this opportunity to formally withdraw all of my previous comments and statements in regards to the HTC Universal giveaway previous to this one.
I also want to apologize here, formally, for being such an asshole about the whole thing.
Ryan is absolutely right.
Because this guy used his talents and resources to achieve his goal is nothing to be upset about. He deserved to win.
After some thinking I realized that we all use our talents, gifts and resources every day in life to get ahead and achieve our goals.
I am a powerlifter. I can bench press 600 pounds and leg press 1,200 pounds. Would it be unfair for me to enter a weightlifting contest and use my strength to win?
Of course not. That is what I do. That is my gift.
All Kirk did was use his professional experience and resources to make a great video. That is his gift, and it is what he does.
He deserves it, and I apologize.
Congradulations, Kirk.
Thank you, Thank you. I would just like to thank all the little people that made this possible, the very first csr that "tried" to "fix" my problem, the next csr that "tried" to "fix" my problem and hey I can't forget Verizon and Cingular. They pretty much made this possible. Can't forget Engadget, they really like me and no Kirk Yuhnke I will not be doing any interviews.
BTW, I think engadget found a new reporter for any videos they need to do...woooo
My first thought was "he sounds just like a professional news reporter."
Well done Kirk! I would just like to say that nowhere in the rules did it forbid professionals from using their skills/resources for this contest...so, it was fair and square if you ask me. Besides, it sounds like he put a lot more time into it than I did.
what a sham, he could probably buy one himeself...give it to someone who would really need it! Cherish it!
Lame, I gotta admit, I'm a little disappointed here. Sorry guys. It just doesnt do it for me, not to mention I thought mine was....
E-E-E-E-E-ENGADGET
Yes that guy can probably afford his own :( Unlike most of us...
...but i will not be a HATER....congrats man, enjoy it! ;)
Kirk looks like he has some real talent. Its nice to see what must be a Gen-X-er getting into the news business with our sort of post-modern distancing from the seriousness of it all.
I look for this guy, should he want to, to get to bigger markets. It would be nice to think the new phone helped that happen!
Seriously Dade, you and the rest of the trolls like you need to stop shitting up the comments section. I look forward to the day when engadget requires registration so they can ban people.
ps: I think he shouldn't win because he didn't include the video of Ziggy. OH HOW I LOVE THAT WATER SKIING SQUIRREL! :)
Dade, dude...that was a bad comparison....if it was a WEIGHT LIFTING contest....of course it be fair for you to win...because thats the whole point of the contest...
However this was not a Broadcasting CONTEST.....it was a CONVINCE THEM CONTEST....so anyone creative could of won....CONGRATS KIRK!!!
Im just glad i didnt strip naked like i had planned...it does pay to think twice! =P
No comments or explanation from the staff? Even if it's to stick by their decision you would think they would give us an update on this matter.
disreguard the last comment, I thought I had made it to the end of posts. Appologies to the staff.
>> 71. what a sham, he could probably buy one
>> himeself...give it to someone who would really
>> need it! Cherish it!
Newsflash: No one "needs" anything posted on engadget. They are all fun toys to own but rarely, if ever, are any of these things needs.
Don't blame the richies because they can afford things you can't.
-p-
When you enter a weightlifting contest, all the other contestants are weightlifters too (right?) and more or less directly comparable to each other. Had KY won a contest for talking heads noone would be yapping about all this.
A big bad fault of our time is that we assume that anything "media" has got to do with creativity. Sure, the media field is THE playground for creative people nowadays, but it's an industry too. Is the guy who composes the millionth rotating globe CGI for a newscast really creative?
I'm a screenwriter with a bunch of produced scripts, mostly advertising but feature films too; I didn't enter the contest because I felt that it would simply be unfair. Okay, and because I was lazy and don't really give a damn about that brick. But it would have been totally unfair. That's why Spielberg doesn't enter the sundance or tribeca film festivals, although he could (allowing for the fact that he probably wouldn't win, but you get the glitch). Had I sat down and approached this the way I approach issues and products every day, as a highly creative industry professional, I assume I would have come up with something that an 11-year-old's photoshopping attempt couldn't match. But HE would have been creative, producing something new, something genuinely creative, while I would simply have been doing my job.
So if you want to really compare things, You as a weightlifter would be entering a rope-pulling contest in grade school.
I liked the idea that the contest was about CONVINCING Engadget to give it away, and be CREATIVE at it. As creativity is the proliferation of new, unseen things I give it a two thumbs down, since a) we've seen enough fake newscasts in our time and b) KY didn't really extend himself. On the convincing side, I'm still not getting it - there's a handset abuser in the city, and in order to pacify him we need to give him a cool cellphone? Duh? There's a rapist in town, let's proffer our virgin daughters?
If anything, the interviewed onlooker/victim guy (I didn't even get what he was) should get it. He was fun. :)
What's wrong with the SMT5600, Kirk? Haha I was astonished to find it on the floor. Especially since I have one sitting right infront of me and I love it.
Congrats.
Look, people...I apologized.
I withdrew my previous statements and tried to make ammends, but it seems some of you either CANNOT read or are too lazy to read more than one comment before you post.
Please read post #69
it is all right there.
As for the weightlifting comparison being a bad one, deal with it.
At least I have the balls to stand up and admit I was wrong and try to apologize for it.
And to Ryan Block..I apologize on a personal level. I was a coklete ass, and I hope you can look past my ignorance.
I will comment no more on this matter. It is a dead issue.
A couple of things:
We didn't place any restrictions on who could enter the contest, and it doesn't seem fair to eliminate some entries because the person had more resources or was a professional in their field. If a skywriter had tried to impress us by writing the word "Engadget" over the skies over New York City should they have been disqualified because they were already a skywriter? Should a graphic designer been disqualified because they sent us something they Photoshopped? Should we have disqualified a professional musician for writing us a song? What about someone who just writes songs in their spare time for fun? Where do you draw the line?
The point is you can't. I's hard to judge everyone's relative expertise, resources, poverty, wealth, etc., so at the end of the day we have to make a decision based on the actual entry itself.
I know not everyone is happy, but we got almost a thousand entries, and we could only pick one winner. Judging a contest like this is by definition a subjective process. There were a lot of amazing entries, but everyone here at Engadget thought Kurt's video was hands-down the winner.
Also, Dade, the apology is greatly appreciated.
Hilarious!! Definitely well deserved, and for those of you who obviously have no clue about News Reporting here is a friendly Holiday Clue.A: Hes what like 28, doubt he makes more than a first year teacher. B: Any idiot with a digital camera, flash MX, iMovie, and a little creativity could have done it. C: Finally all T.V. Journalism majors learn how to edit and do their own video work. Its called a college degree dont hate him because he knows more than you. Google him and check out his resume!!
Congrats to the winners.... esp. for Day 4. I was totally following the whole HTC thing (with the Day 2 being an HTC phone and of course Day 5 being the HTC Universal). So for my guess on Day 4, I went with the recently released Cingular 2125 HTC Faraday.
Still pretty happy with my Day 4 win from last year (N-Gage QD).
Can't wait to see what Engadget digs up for next year.
Dear Peter,
Where's the creativity in skywriting when you're a skywriter? Where's the creativity in bombing 3rd world countries when you're POTUS? I can only repeat the two key words: CREATIVE and CONVINCING. Was KY creative? Hell, no! Was the "mobile abuser" storyline convincing? Not to me, but I haven't seen any of the other entries (those must've been real bad I guess) so I can't compare.
I guess all the average Joe readers of engadget can simply spare themselves the trouble of taking part in this sort of contest in the future, since they'll always succumb to the pros. I for my part am astounded that criticism is met by a "you're just jealous you didn't get it" reply, which seems to be our national means of justifying foul play.
I still have the utmost sympathy for all the disappointed runners up who feel cheated upon. I do tend to take the underdog's side, I admit. engadget should have proven some greatness by providing some sort of 2nd and 3rd prize. Heck, I might even consider sponsoring them.
And here's a question to Kirk, if he happens to be reading: Do you talk like that in real life too?
"whatever you do to convince us to give you this thing must be original. Original not only as in you thought of / did / recorded / whatevered this thing into creation, but that it's original original."
Uhh... a news reporter doing a 'mock' news report... uh... very original...
SWEET 1 YEAR XBOX LIVE SUBSCRIPTION!
Funny Vid, but kinda lame when you relaize he's a real anchorman with real equipment at his disposal. But them's the breaks; I'm just glad I didn't submit anything. I'd be a little miffed.
Even if he didn't use their equipment, which you can't confirm he did anyway, he could have easily done this on his own. The degree in broadcast journalism alone would give him the smoothness and skill to put something like this together, and any computer bought in the last several years could put together a video like that...
Stop being so self righteous.
Anyway, awesome video, well deserved.
This video was not that funny. Yes, I agree it is very professional looking (Which it'd better be with access to those types of resources), but for us common folk, we didn't have a chance. I've seen funnier video on UPN.
How do we claim our prize?
I was reading this interesting discussion. Frankly I very much enjoyed the movie. He had a nice idea and executed it well. Being able to use one's talent is what is likely to win in a creative contest.
Imagine someone is a dancer. So he can cook up a dance sequence to convince eng... to part with their gift.
The definition of creative is not necessarily doing something outside your comfort zone. In fact most creative ideas come in related fields, near to comfort zone.
He is hoping that he can be creative enough to move up the ladder like Reese Davis. Good luck, dude.