Ryan Block » Appearances

Judging at CEA’s new i-stage event

Ryan Block — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 03:14:23 +0000

One of the things I’m most looking forward to being involved in this year is judging the CEA’s new event, i-stage. Think of it as American Idol, but for gadgets; the winner gets a turnkey exhibit at CES and $50k, but I’d say more importantly they’ll get some much needed attention and feedback before the real CES onslaught begins in January. It goes down on October 20th in Vegas, maybe I’ll see you there!

Also, for those in the Bay Area, I’ll also be speaking on a panel about mobile computing (I think?) at Om Malik’s Mobilize conference. That one’s September 18th.

Profiled in Wired, on G4 tonight

Ryan Block — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:42:23 +0000

I don’t have a ton of time to get into the storied history of Wired’s year-and-a-half-in-coming profile of Engadget vs Gizmodo, but suffice it to say they spent the better part of five pages taking the typical, obvious angle (ZOMG IT’S LIKE A FRAT WAR WITH GADGET BLOGS LOL), missing the real story right under their noses: that we were right there redefining the face of tech media, and everyone — CNET, NY Times, even Wired — had to change up their game to adapt. (Most of them only did so too late, which is part of the reason why we wound up on top.) But that’s not really as fun as getting David Pogue to comment on blogger gaffes and his perceived immaturity of the medium. That’s not to say the thing was a complete wash, there’s some worthwhile stuff and I think they kind of got a bit of the essence of both publications, but I just find all this rivalry stuff so passé. It’s really not all it’s cracked up to be, believe me.

Anywho, aside, for those interested in hearing me ramble about what’s up with Apple doing music subscriptions, I’ll be on G4′s Attack of the Show tonight. See you there!

New York

Ryan Block — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:10:59 +0000

Headed out to New York tomorrow for the Greener Gadgets Conference, which I expect should be really enlightening. As usual, not staying nearly long enough to fall back in love — but I’ll definitely be around more than long enough to remember how freezing cold it gets.

It’s fortuitous timing, though, because that during my last visit in November I was profiled by On The Inside, which just went live this month. It’s probably way more detail than anyone really wants about me and my relationship with The City (still, thanks Thomas!), but the idea is to get a window into one’s relationship with New York through the recommendation of some off the beaten track spots. Some of mine that made it in are: Barcade, Otafuku, the MoMA Design Store, and May Wah.

CES and Macworld: done, finally

Ryan Block — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 06:27:00 +0000

Not that we’re out of the woods just quite yet, but there’s a certain sense of relief when everyone gets to go home, recover and tend to their wounds, and officially say we’ve made it over the CES / Macworld hump — by far the hardest two weeks of the year.

Of course, it wasn’t all grins of pride. Despite a stellar CES performance and an equally stellar Macworld run-up, we had some major hiccups on the site today. Post-mortem on that coming ASAP — don’t worry, it’ll be the detailed-as-I-can-give kind which I’ll try not to vet with our lawyers first. It’s still nice to know that even despite having major outages throughout the busiest two hours of the entire year, we could best our closest competition on the order of millions of pages. (Not that pages are really any metric to go by anymore, but you know.)

Thanks again to everyone who stuck by us during the insanity today, and for dealing with our overly-obsessive wall to wall coverage over the past couple of weeks in general. But more than anything, I again have to thank the team, who make and re-make Engadget every single day of the week, rain or shine, uptime or downtime, without fail. Everything good about Engadget I owe to them, as does every reader of the site.

P.S. -Just for further blog-record-keeping of this crap, keep an eye out for appearances on TWiT, CNN.com, Xbox Insider (on the 360 Dashboard), G4, and Irish Newstalk Radio. (Am I missing any?)

On AOTS again

Ryan Block — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:48:36 +0000

Was on tonight’s Attack of the Show. I hear Schlomo says I need to smile more. Don’t you people under stand? That IS my happy face. You should see me when I’m serious.

*Note, more smiling on TV.

I guess I’m a web celeb!

Ryan Block — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:09:56 +0000

Wow, Forbes did me the great honor of ranking me among this year’s Web Celeb 25. Hard to imagine I’ll be able to pull this one off twice, but for now I’m definitely in good company, along with Om, FSJ, Mike, Kevin, and everyone else. Oh, bonus extra profile action here. I think I’m going to miss 2007.

Profiled in Fortune, where’s the fight?

Ryan Block — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:47:09 +0000

Fortune did a profile on us vs. them packed full of trite boxing riffs — the spin being, of course, that there’s this huge, bitter public rivalry between us and Gizmodo. I wasn’t sure how they were going to pull it off since it has all the makings of a non-story: two very different publications with two different angles and audiences. As it turns out the worst thing Copeland could get out of either of us is that I supposedly cut some line at an Apple event (there are no lines at Apple events, just big nebulous groups of reporters waiting at the gate).

I don’t actually find it strange that I wasn’t quoted, either. I’m more prone to discuss the competition from all sides (CNET, Wired, even BoingBoing, etc., not just Giz) and that just doesn’t really fare well when you’re trying to do a Pepsi and Coke story. The landscape looks a little different when you’re not clamoring to the top. But the story does get one thing right in that Brian and I are good friends and have immense respect for one another — and no one has ever had to “press” me to admit as much.

P.S. -And no, we didn’t pose together for that photo, although I have no doubts that Brian could kick my ass in real life! Also, I’m taller.

Oh yeah, more appearances, etc.

Ryan Block — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 05:04:26 +0000

Was on TWIT #111 last week, as well as Leo’s analog radio show (The Tech Guy), WCBS (not sure if that one ran), and a couple others, as well as mentioned, quoted, or interviewed in the NY Times, Crain’s NY (I don’t think this is out yet), BBC (twice), The Guardian (twice), The Times (twice), and so on. Busy week!

On Cranky Geeks yesterday

Ryan Block — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 17:03:53 +0000

Check it out. Best part: where John Dvorak goes off on a tangent about how I look and sound like Christopher Walken. Um, wait, what?

Recent appearances on Digital Cafe

Ryan Block — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 21:58:46 +0000

I was recently on Mario Armstrong’s Digital Cafe program to discuss early adoption and blogging, two topics obviously near and dear to my heart. (I was also recently on his XM show, Digital Spin, but I don’t have a clip from that one.)

More bits

Ryan Block — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:01:57 +0000

Some additional triflings, ranging from amusing to awesome (in order):

I’m jealous: Brian met Stan Lee. And I didn’t.
Paris Hilton loses her $60m inheritance. Perhaps there is a god after all. Update: TMZ reports it’s all a dirty fabrication. This will be the last time PH is ever mentioned on this blog.
In related news, it sounds like the bay area had its tech parties this weekend crashed by a Paris Hilton type of its own: Julia Allison seems every bit as vacuous (“(in)famy”?), phony, and manipulative of the media. She also has one pose, which is hilariously awful. Welcome to California.
Dear god, will someone please get me an electric drivetrain vehicle? I may even settle for this new Prius PHEV, despite its pitiful, castrated 8 mile electric range. And don’t feed me no bull about waiting for advancements in battery tech, we all know it’s there. The EV1 got at VERY LEAST 55 miles on ancient lead-acid batteries, and it was introduced in 1995!
Peter and I interviewed on the Gadgeteer
Will Ted Stevens soon have to start digging a series of ~~tubes~~ tunnels to escape from prison? Hope so!
They got married!

Deer in the headlights

Ryan Block — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 01:41:36 +0000

Want to see me surprised? Wait until I’m barefoot and exhausted, bumming around Mahalo HQ after days of grinding at E3, and then put me in front of the inimitable Kara Swisher (who wastes precisely 3 seconds before getting me on camera to talk about Engadget and life at AOL). Well played, Swisher, well played.

Appearances this week

Ryan Block — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 21:37:22 +0000

I wound up doing some media hits for some silly product that no one’s ever heard of — who knew? Here are a few bits:
NPR, The Guardian, TWiT, and Information Salad.

On NPR’s On the Media

Ryan Block — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 05:41:56 +0000

In addition to being on Talk of the Nation, I also had the privilege of being on NPR’s On the Media this week. Yep, you guessed the topic! The episode just came out this evening, check it out! (I’m about 13 minutes in, if you want to cut to the chase.)

Update: Niall points out the segment is actually linked! Suhweet. Download just my segment here.

On NPR’s Talk of the Nation today

Ryan Block — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 17:25:35 +0000

Gonna be on NPR’s Talk of the Nation today at 4PM EST, or some time around then. (I’m there at 12:30PM PST, so who knows.) They’ve got a podcast too, so if you miss it I’ll post it here later. Topic: EMI and Apple. Try not to look so surprised! I promise I’ll continue praising EMI for their big move to DRM-free digital sales.

Update: NPR’s posted the show, it’s about an 1h 17m into the program. Looks like I’ll also be back tomorrow to talk about the same topic on On the Media.

Me and This Filthy Life

Ryan Block — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 06:53:07 +0000

Wow, there I am with my pal Michi (well, her eyes anyway) in a John Waters movie afterall, laughing at jokes about John’s gold Comme des Garçons boots. Damn, good eye Sam Moody! If you do get a chance to check out This Filthy Life, I definitely do recommend it. I forgot how good it is!

I was in a John Waters movie?

Ryan Block — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 19:04:09 +0000

Last winter when I was still living in New York some pals and I went to go see John Waters, of all people, perform a life standup act in the Lower East Side. I wouldn’t exactly call it a who’s who of celebs, freaks, and weirdos, but besides the man himself, Jeff Garlin (a fave of mine from Curb Your Enthusiasm) definitely made his presence known. Naturally I had to head straight to the front of the theater. No one really told us why, but the audience was filmed; today I come to find out that the footage went into the Garlin-directed John Waters documentary which shares the name of that show: This Filthy World. A reader of this blog, Sam Moody, apparently spotted me and emailed. Now it all comes together — no wonder they enforced a dress code and asked us to exaggerate our laughter. And now I’m immortalized (kind of) in a Garlin / Waters flick. Could this be the best day ever?

Recent media hits

Ryan Block — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:44:23 +0000

CES and Macworld SF are big business (big surprise). In the last week I’ve done hits for the WSJ, the Chicago Tribune, ABC (I don’t think it aired, though), PRI (featured, oddly, alongside John Leguizamo, a Swedish rock star, and the editor of the New Republic), Free FM, CalacanisCast, and Attack of the Show. Hopefully I didn’t come off entirely like a babbling sleep-deprived idiot, but as usual I can’t really bring myself to watch or listen to the material.

Oh yeah

Ryan Block — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 14:30:19 +0000

I was also on the Big O and Dukes show (the very same one Veronica appeared on a week or two ago) answering live questions about hot items to buy this season; not surprisingly, most were about HDTVs. I can’t blame ‘em either, I just picked one up myself, a 46-inch Sharp 1080p set. Oh, I also done got myself quoted by News-Leader.

Appearing on Attack of the Show tonight

Ryan Block — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 15:47:20 +0000

Of course, what else would I be doing on 6/6/6 than appearing on G4′s Attack of the Show? If you get the network, tune in tonight at 7:00PM ET/PT and watch as I choke and make an ass of myself on live television. I’ll be doing The Loop segment, squaring off with Molly Wood from CNET. Oh, and I guess one of the creators of SuicideGirls will be appearing on the show as well, so, um, bonus?