We run this site for all of you -- it is very much a community-driven project. With all of our staff being primarily unpaid or underpaid, it's the community's ongoing support and referrals that keep us going strong.
The site has once again grown exponentially this year, and with CES 2013 just around the corner, we're expecting to have a killer start to the next year. We'll be meeting with Intel, AMD, ASUS, nVidia -- you name it, we're probably talking to them -- and I can't wait to see what kind of new analytical and helpful content we can provide. We have new affiliation status with major retailers, sponsorship opportunities from hardware vendors, and an increased supply of review products, all allowing us to provide some of the best gaming hardware content on the web.
A potential logo redesign (by Andrew Coleman). We're also working on massive site updates, but those may be a while away.
But I digress.
I just wanted to write a personal "thank you" note to all of our visitors, forum members, fans, lurkers (yes, you!), and of course, our contributing writers and forum support staff. The engineering and PR staff at many of our contacts also deserve thanks -- they've provided us with the tools to research and learn about the inner-workings of all the cool hardware we write about.
I'm excited about 2013. I say this every year - but it remains true: The site's database is growing, our readership is growing, our community is intelligent and supportive of newcomers (and clearly doesn't need to be pandered to!), so I'm excited.
The writing process for our articles has become increasingly more complex, too. We now have a peer-review system between staff, we spend sleepless nights researching topics to provide information that you won't find elsewhere, and we've benefitted tremendously from that focus on quality. That's what I want to keep doing: Focusing on quality, well-written articles that deliver crucial or otherwise intriguing information. I'm going to assign you all—the community—a job going forward: Keep doing what you're doing. Post comments and forum topics that ask us hard questions, tell us you want more information, ask us to research technology and gaming topics for you, and tell us what you want to read. With this system, we'll build one of the most comprehensive gaming and hardware outlets out there.
At this time last year, we were getting close to finalizing our move to the current server. Our old servers couldn't support the traffic surges we were experiencing, and with the new scalable server model we're using, we've had nearly 100% uptime throughout 2012. Exciting, I assure you. No, really. I'm jumping in my seat.
As for next year's conventions, we're currently planning to attend the following:
- CES 2013 (Jan 7 - Jan 11; we will post news/videos throughout the event).
- PAX East (March 22-24; as above, constant updates will be posted during the event).
- ECGC (or whatever they call it this year) to talk with some major game publishers and developers.
- The Escapist Expo, if it happens again.
- Potentially PAX Prime. Not sure yet.
- Potentially the GPU conference. Not sure yet, that hinges on a lot of things.
We're also hoping to tour some of manufacturing factories and other hardware businesses, hopefully so we can provide you some cool photos "from the inside," so to speak.
With that, I hope you've all had an excellent year with us and look forward to your continued support! We're really pushing hard for a successful CES, so if you want to help us out, check out the site during the week of Jan 7 - Jan 11/12/13-ish for the newest tech products.
Cheers,
- Steve.