Independent gadget news publisher Pocket-lint is ready to appoint a U.S. editor full-time in December, after owner/editor Stuart Miles declared his six-month sojourn in New York’s tech scene a success.
Miles, who founded the site in 2003, began an exploration of the U.S. market in June to investigate how Pocket-lint could expand its gadget coverage from across the Atlantic.
He will now return before Christmas, having concluded to appoint one full-time editorial staffer in New York.
“Me coming over since June has allowed me to evaluate the market for myself, we’ve achieved that,” Miles told paidContent:UK. But Miles also says he’s learned differences between the two markets: “London seems to be more about the party scene. Here, (tech companies say) ‘we’re doing a series of briefings today’ and if you’re not on that list of 12 people, then hard luck. Some days, there aren’t any briefings.”
There’s no shortage of gadget news online, of course. Pocket-lint’s aim, though, is to better inform its core UK readers of news originating in America. Miles says the location helped, him for instance, take Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) to task on the many unanswered questions left by its international Kindle announcement.
The site claims a million monthly uniques, the majority from the UK. Megawhat.tv, though – an online gadget video series – has been “on hiatus, a summer break”; the publisher said there hadn’t been enough good material to cover.
Miles acknowledged the advertising downturn, but said Pocket-lint has recently been able to launch a new, super-sized advertising format dubbed “The Big Boy”, a 978×250 banner that’s been sold to Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Sony (NYSE: SNE) for campaigns placed against well-read editorial packages about 3DTV and handheld gaming.