Today is Engadget's 10th birthday!
Ten years ago today (in fact, exactly 10 years ago, if you're reading this post in real time), Engadget was born. Our first post featured T-Flash, a new memory card format created to serve cellphone users who wanted extra storage -- as long as they were willing to cap their needs at 128MB.
We followed that initial post with another 13 that day, all written by founding editor Peter Rojas in his New York apartment. Peter had recently left Gizmodo, which he also co-founded, and saw both of those sites as being at the forefront of a reinvention of journalism. As he pointed out in a recent conversation:
I liked writing about tech, and I wanted to write as a fan, as someone who was really into this stuff -- not just as a journalist or a dispassionate observer. That's one of the things that made blogging great; it was people who were talking about things from their own perspective as enthusiasts, not just telling you industry news.
The T-Flash brand featured in our first post was eventually dropped in favor of the better-known microSD. The latest iteration, announced by SanDisk just last week, has 128GB of storage space, a thousand-fold increase in capacity over the version we highlighted a decade ago.
Like those memory cards, Engadget has continued to grow. Fourteen-post days have given way to periods when our daily updates number in the hundreds, as we cover major product launches, breaking news and industry events like CES and Mobile World Congress. Along the way, we've added videos, a massive product database, user reviews and forums and our own reviews of thousands of products. We've also built a team that has included some of the most talented writers and editors in the tech space, including Peter's successors, Ryan Block, Joshua Topolsky and Tim Stevens.
During the next few months, our 10 Years In series will commemorate our 10th year by highlighting the many ways the consumer electronics landscape has evolved during the past decade. Stay tuned for the final word on PDAs, PMPs and CRTs.
As we celebrate our 10th anniversary, one thing hasn't changed: our obsessive approach to providing you with the best news and information about consumer electronics and technology. Thanks for joining us as we enter our second decade!
Coming tomorrow: The early days of Engadget, with more comments from Peter Rojas and an exclusive look at the evolution of Engadget's iconic logo.
(Engadget birthday cake by Bruno)
