Most of you probably know about this by now. Former Engadget/Gizmodo people have created GDGT. As I understand it, their goal is to have us all register all the gadgets we own and then they create discussion threads and whatnot around those gadgets. The value proposition for users is that communities, not unlike our own empeg bbs, come into existence around specific gadgets. You'll hear from others when there's a defect you need to deal with, etc.

Advertisers will love it, of course, because you're registering all the crap you own and they can computationally sort out things like how likely you are to be in the market for a new gadget.

Anyway, I'm curious, had such a thing existed back when the empeg Mk I was first coming into being, would this board have ever come together? Right now, big-time gadgets like TiVos will have dedicated forums. Smaller-time gadgets (like, say, the Oppo Blu-Ray player I just bought) tend to have threads on AV forums. How much of that traffic will GDGT capture?

Am I missing anything?

It's a neat idea, but it looks to me right now like the individual "forums" are a little … clunky.

In related news, I came across Warranty Elephant, which seems like a good idea. It seems like it could easily be supplanted by a calendaring site with a freeform database and decent blob storage, but I don't know of any such site. It also seems like something that should be integrated with GDGT.

I'm quite psyched about the site. You should listen to this week's GDGT podcast for a better idea of what Ryan and Pete (we're on a first name basis) envision for their creation. I'm not entirely convinced, but I'm intrigued.

What I like is the extensive database of CE devices, tying together user/press reviews, product information, and just plain specifications.

The thing that worries me is that while I think it's neat that the database is editable by users, this inevitably causes a mess. There will be very incomplete product pages and weird differences in naming conventions ("Nintendo Wii console" vs "Microsoft XBox 360").

Also odd is how Peter and Ryan kept talking about how they'd built the "largest database of gadgets ever made," but when I went to add some stuff, I got around to entering the video game systems I own, and was surprised that there was no Super Nintendo, and they didn't even have the original NES!

But this is getting very specific. Overall, I like the idea.

Hmm. Could be useful. It all depends on how well it takes off. I can see it getting hideous amounts of spam and astro turfing though...

After playing with it some more, they're going to need ways of tying together closely related products (e.g., Sony LCD TVs are really a selection of which electronics package, which screen size, and which backlight -- most discussions for one TV will apply to at least a significant subset of the others).

Also, I noticed that they had no Blu-ray or DVD players, nor any way to add them. That whole category is just missing.

I posted my review of my Blackberry 8820, and it was in the 8800-series page. No reason the same couldn't be done for other products.

Similarly, I went to add my MSI Wind, but the default model was not the same SKU as the one I have, but I noticed that further down they had a section for different configurations. I guess you just have to add them.

But I'm surprised by the complete lack of a Blu-Ray category. I haven't seen the "add a gadget" page yet (it's closed now because they got swamped), but I'd be surprised if there was a "new category" option in it.