{"id":4019,"date":"2011-11-24T11:00:51","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T10:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uk.cision.com\/?p=4019"},"modified":"2021-12-08T17:02:44","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T16:02:44","slug":"media-spotlight-gizmodo-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/media-spotlight-gizmodo-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Spotlight : Gizmodo UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following an 18 month stint as Gizmodo US<\/a> \u2019 contributing editor, Kat Hannaford<\/a> returned to Future Publishing in August 2011 to launch Gizmodo UK<\/a>. \u201cEditorially, there are many differences to working on Gizmodo UK compared to other sites. Having worked on the launch, and now editing the site, I find that there’s not much time to write, but instead I\u2019m working on lots of exciting opportunities for the brand. Commissioning takes up a lot of my time, but I feel privileged to be working with some amazing freelancers and my news editor, Sam Gibbs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gizmodo\u2019s UK launch was facilitated through Gawker\u2019s partnership with Future Publishing, one that Kat felt was a natural choice for Gawker. \u201cFuture is the country\u2019s leading tech publisher and is bounding ahead in the digital world,\u00a0 particularly due to its recent investment in app, iOS Newsstand development, and video-producing. It was also a company I felt comfortable working for again, having worked there as T3.com\u2019s News Editor until November 2009. At Future, I have terrific support, particularly from my group publishing director Nial Ferguson, and the title slots in nicely alongside the tech portfolio’s leading lights, TechRadar<\/a> and T3.com<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The site has a broad remit covering design, architecture, space, transport and even food. \u201cOur thinking is that Gizmodo is the tech brand for people who are also interested in other things. While we don’t have a tagline per se, the closest we have is that we like to look at mainstream news through a geek lens.\u201d Like its bigger American brother, Gizmodo UK only covers product launches worth the team\u2019s time. \u201cWe’re not going to scrape the bottom of the barrel writing about anything and everything; only those gadgets that we’d personally recommend or purchase ourselves. Unless there’s fun to be had with them, as is our oft-cheeky and irreverent tone. And if ever there’s an opportunity to examine the how’s and why’s of a gadget or technology’s existence, and how humans can really intersect with it, then we’ll delve in.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, why with Gizmodo US\u2019s strong presence on relatively global topics was a UK launch deemed necessary? \u201cThat\u2019s a question that’s been asked many times, but has an answer surprisingly simple: readers want localised content. They don’t miss out on the wider topic areas as we syndicate as much content as we like from the US, and they benefit by reading about the products and news which impact them on these shores.\u201d However, one of Kat\u2019s challenges is differentiating Gizmodo UK as much as possible from their US site, in order to retain UK-based readers so they don’t attempt to override the redirect that’s in place. \u201cThe obvious way to do that is in telecoms coverage, but thanks to the brand’s wide remit of content, we also achieve that in our popular culture commentary too.\u00a0One thing I’m very proud of is that O2 chose Gizmodo UK above all other tech sites to partner with for London’s first-ever 4G trials. Around 30 of our readers will be testing the network exclusively, several years before the high-speed service is rolled out commercially.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gizmodo UK\u2019s readership is overwhelmingly British, although they have found a surprisingly large number of readers from the US who prefer their blog format. \u201cWe\u2019re lucky to have such terrific reader engagement; a tough thing here in the UK in comparison to US sites. The main incentive for using social media is to get readers interested in the brand and visit the site more, so it\u2019s hugely important to us. We tweet<\/a>, Facebook <\/a>and Google Plus<\/a> around five main stories a day, plus reply to each and every reader who interacts with us. We get a huge number of comments each day (we had over 6,000 comments for the month of October), and try hard to respond to as many as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making the Pitch: Tips and Advice for Pitching to Gizmodo UK:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re open to receiving any press release or tip-off, as long as it\u2019s relevant to the site\u2019s nature. I would prefer it if the PRO or contact gives our site a cursory glance first, not just to gauge whether their pitch is relevant, but also to ensure we haven\u2019t already covered it \u2013 you\u2019d be surprised how many pitches we receive for stories which are still on the homepage.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaying that though, I\u2019d rather receive all press releases than no press releases, and often feel very embarrassed when I see other journalists and bloggers whingeing on Twitter about these so-called \u201cpr fails.\u201d Having several friends in the PR industry, I know that our side of the fence often does far worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf any PROs reading this would like to get in touch with Gizmodo UK, I\u2019d suggest sending your pitch via email, as phone pitches (especially when chasing us up to see if we received an email) tend to be rather intrusive. I\u2019m aware of clients\u2019 demands however, and know it\u2019s not as easy as that!\u201d<\/p>\n

Editorial information on Gizmodo and Kat Hannaford, along with thousands of other media contacts and websites,\u00a0can be found in our\u00a0CisionPoint<\/a>\u00a0media database<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following an 18 month stint as Gizmodo US \u2019 contributing editor, Kat Hannaford returned to Future Publishing in August 2011 to launch Gizmodo UK. \u201cEditorially, there are many differences to working on Gizmodo UK compared …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3584,5741],"tags":[77,3222,3362,3623,3624,3625,3626,3627],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4019"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4019"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137423,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4019\/revisions\/137423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}