44 Tech sites to contact when launching your product

This is my contact list for an NFC piece of tech I’m working on.  I thought it might be useful for other tech startups launching new products especially for those in the mobile / android / NFC space.

When you submit a news tip to these websites you might not receive a response and/or you may be waiting up to 4 weeks before they get around to writing publishing.  Don’t worry if this is the case, they are very busy and sometimes your products just doesn’t fit in with what their audience might be interested in.

You should use the Chicago manual of style when drafting any newsworthy articles.  The likelihood of your tip being picked up on depends on the quality of your press pack and it’s relevance according to the editors audience.  I would suggest spending at least a week working on your press pack and if possible get it proof read by an expert.  Creating a press pack is a skill, this contact list is only 1% of the problem solved.

When contacting for a review you wont need to be so formal however you may want to provide them with a press release style statement so they can quote you.

Each website will have a different audience so you should tweak how you contact them to emphasize how your new product will affect their audience.

  1. xda-developers  – http://www.xda-developers.com/suggest-content/
  2. YCombinator – http://news.ycombinator.com/submit
  3. Reddit – http://reddit.com
  4. slashdot – http://slashdot.org/
  5. Wired – http://www.wired.com/about/feedback/
  6. engadget – http://www.engadget.com/about/tips/
  7. Gizmodo – tipbox@gizmodo.com
  8. theregister.co.uk – news@theregister.co.uk
  9. gadgetsin – https://twitter.com/gadgetsin
  10. The huffington post – scoop@huffingtonpost.com
  11. Mashable – http://mashable.com/submit/
  12. Techcrunch – tips@techcrunch.com
  13. Before it’s news – http://beforeitsnews.com/editorial/
  14. gizmag – editor@gizmag.com
  15. guyism – http://live.guyism.com/submit
  16. sellcell.com – http://www.sellcell.com/help-and-support/
  17. sellmymobile.com – http://www.sellmymobile.com/help-and-support/
  18. the next web – http://thenextweb.com/contact/
  19. geek.com – http://www.geek.com/about/
  20. the gadgeteer – http://the-gadgeteer.com/well-review-it/
  21. ewallstreeter – http://ewallstreeter.com/page/contact.php
  22. gear diary – http://www.geardiary.com/how-to-submit-your-product-for-review/
  23. android spin – http://androidspin.com/contact-us/
  24. gizbot – https://twitter.com/gizbotcom
  25. rfid journal – mroberti@rfidjournal.com
  26. gentlemint – http://gentlemint.com/
  27. pymnts.com – http://pymnts.com/regulations/submit-content/
  28. dailyme – http://dailyme.com/mynews/addcontent
  29. lazy tech guys – http://lazytechguys.com/contact-us/
  30. techchee.com – tips@techchee.com
  31. nfc world – http://www.nfcworld.com/tip-off/
  32. tech wench – http://www.techwench.com/contact/
  33. damn geeky – damngeeky@gmail.com
  34. runaroundtech – http://www.runaroundtech.com/product-submission/
  35. golem.de – news@golem.de
  36. betakit – tips@betakit.com
  37. android rundown – http://www.androidrundown.com/about/submit-app-hardware-review/
  38. Android Banks – http://www.androidbands.com/
  39. mobile developer tips – http://mobiledevelopertips.com/submit-tip
  40. nfcnews – http://www.nfcworld.com/contacts/
  41. TG Daily – http://www.tgdaily.com/contact
  42. Electronista – http://www.electronista.com/contact/newstips/1
  43. GigaOM – http://gigaom.com/tips/
  44. Forbes – readers@forbes.com

Do you think your website should be included?  Leave me a comment and I will check it out.

Also this

Mobile phone detection with Varnish – Quick getting started guide

This is a quick reference guide, for a proper understanding of what you are doing use this guide. This solution is easier to implement and has less of a cpu overhead.

yum install libxml2-devel
#OR
apt-get intall libxml2-dev
wget https://gist.github.com/raw/805710/9f34a18e528c20eff1c92672c6f1856ed849f5ea/wurfl.c
wget https://gist.github.com/raw/805710/b9272d8a1d32d29034574c88b81fc79eb050e21b/wurfl.h
gcc -c -o wurfl.o wurfl.c -I/usr/include/libxml2 -fPIC
gcc -shared -Wl,-soname,libwurfl.so.1 -o libwurfl.so.1.0.1 wurfl.o -lxml2
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/wurfl/WURFL/latest/wurfl-latest.zip
unzip wurfl-latest.zip
mv wurfl.xml /etc/wurfl.xml
cp libwurfl.so /usr/lib
ln -s /usr/lib/libwurfl.so /usr/lib64/libwurfl.so

Edit your /etc/varnish/mobile.vcl using this as a guide

/etc/init.d/varnish stop
/usr/sbin/varnishd -s malloc,32M -a 0.0.0.0:80 -f /etc/varnish/mobile.vcl   -p 'cc_command=exec cc -fpic -shared -Wl,-x -lwurfl -o %o %s'

Test by looking in your server heads.. IE in PHP.. print_r ($_SERVER);

Xbox Live Games on Windows Mobile 7

So I don’t feel emotional about this, that pretty much sums it up..

I think its cool that Microsoft are trying but I don’t believe it’s enough.  Shame though because I think a load of educational games tied into an Xbox live type reward structure would be highly motivating and more motivating than a reward structure that is purely focused on Edu.

5 main barriers for Microsoft:

  1. WM7 has too much catchup to do on android
  2. WM7 doesn’t have a following of developers
  3. WM7 devices wont be as open as android
  4. The Xbox live market is pretty small (compared to Google owned farmville etc.)
  5. Lots of xbox live games just wont translate well to mobile (control/interface issues etc).

Will I be looking to develop some educational games for xbox live?  Nah.  I’d rather stick with Flash/HTML5 games and a free/open scoring/reward mechanism.

Further reading on xbox live on WM7 is available here.

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Another step towards mobile for the classroom

One of the frequent arguments used to cast out the use of Mobile phones in classrooms is the lack of charger or short battery life. No longer is that an issue…

The Airnergy WiFi Harvesting Charger “absorbs” power from your schools wireless network into a battery which can be used to charge devices such as mobile phones or PDA’s using a mini USB connection.

One of the best things about this is that any device that won’t use USB2 connectivity will be excluded. Hopefully this will encourage manufacturers to adopt more standards.
Of course that’s a dig at apple…

Mobile support to Primary Pad

I know there is huge demand for working on collaborative documents with mobile devices (android, iphone, windows mobile) however at current this is not possible due to the clients not having the same type of java support as web browsers. We hope by mid 2010 we will have a mobile solution in place so watch this space. The likelihood is the devices will support primary pad when they receive newer versions of Java so it may be worth keeping an eye on Sun’s progress.

More info on Primary Pad here.