Five facts about Pocket-lint for our sixth birthday

19 February 2009 9:46 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Happy Birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday dear Pocket-lint, happy birthday to us...

That's right, we are 6 today, a long time in the wonderful world of the Internet. In 2003 when I launched the site, Halo had just arrived on the Xbox, the hottest phone on the block was the Sony Ericsson T68i and digital camera users were getting excited about 3-megapixel models.

Starting out
In 2003 I plucked up the courage to spend £14.95 on a domain name and launched Pocket-lint. The payment went through on the 28 January but it wasn't until the 19 February that we actually went live. Roles were easy to assign. I was the MD, editor, news hound, reviews editor, office assistant, programmer, PR man and office boy. Six years on, and including our media sales house, we have over 50 people working for Pocket-lint.

Haven't I seen you before?
Our first month was amazing, yep that's right we had just over 1000 unique visitors come and see what we were up to. Advertising revenue from Google was a massive .63 cents (yes you read that right). Six years on and Pocket-lint is the largest independent gadget website in the UK and the fifth largest electronics website in the UK according to tracking site Hitwise for the last 12 months, and this counts not just editorial offerings but all sites like Canon, LG and most of the competition.

We all work from home
That's right, I don't believe in a central office. Why have an office when there are events to attend, shows to cover, meetings to endure? So instead of battling the crowds to catch that 7:57 train, our staff, who are based in cities around the world from Ascot to Wellington, can do their job and keep the news and reviews coming your way.

Our biggest story in the last 6 years was...
We've written thousands of reviews and news stories in the last 6 years with the coverage growing every year, year on year as the team has expanded. In our first year we wrote 124 news stories and 271 reviews. So far in 2009 we've already filed 105 reviews and 1245 news stories. So what have been the biggest stories to date? In reviews it has been the Sony Ericsson K750i Mobile Phone review from 2005 and in news pipping our Apple 3G exclusive from 2007, our recent photo gallery of the Toshiba TG01.

What's in a name?
It's the most commonly asked question, what does Pocket-lint actually mean? Well, if you don't know it's the fluff in your pocket. While we all probably believe that our favourite gadgets are indispensable, really they are just fluff that make our lives a little bit easier and a little bit more fun (well ... sometimes). That's always been my motto here at Pocket-lint covering the stuff that makes life easier. In fact our first slogan was "Filtering out the crap". We might have grown up a lot in the 6 years we've been going (well, we like to think we have), but we still hold the same values: Does it make my life better? Does it work? Has it got wow factor?

Three cheers
Hip hip hooray. Without you, we wouldn't be what we are today, so thank you.

Stuart Miles

Full tags