I was browsing Book of Joe today and came across this fun little tool, that tells you if you’re an A, B, C or err D list Blogger. It’s all based off Technorati rankings (how many other blogs link to your blog) and some what surprisingly we hit the A list. Although the tool is just a bit of fun (and pink!) I thought this would be a good time to say another thank you (deja vu anyone):).

First off hats to our current bloggers, it’s taken a long time to build our current team, so thanks Mike, Tiago, Edwin and to the new boys Dan and Fred. You’ve made my job of expanding and improving CG a lot easier than it could of been (I’m about to start Christmas shopping for the CG writers so keep it up guys :)).

Second lot of thanks go to the blogs that link to us when quoting any stories we report on, so in no particular order and by no means complete, hat tips to:

• GadgetORama
• Jeff and his Wireless Weblog
• ubergizmo
• Phil at Wired Home
• Eglobe1
• Strategic Development
• Luxist
• Spluch
• TechnoSquad
• gadgetell
• Digital Drops
• Naik’s News
• Gizmodo
• Geek Chic
• Sci Fi Tech
• Chiqui World
• Uber Review
• Thrilling Wonder Story

(These are just some of the blogs that linked to us in the last 2 days, which is kind of cool. Thanks guys (and chics), if you’re off to CES in January let me know and I’ll buy you a beer (well not the 100 or so writers at Gizmodo).

Finally thanks to our readers, forum members and the folk who leave comments (especially Paz, Keith, GrimReeper, Lee, Andy, Matt,…) which proves it isn’t just bots that suck our bandwidth :).

Cheers Kineda for the pink tool, but why Book of Joe is on the lowly B List (oh the shame) I don’t know.

Congratulations to Hoomamooma who won the $15 Think Geek voucher by leaving the most amusing comment to this post (as voted for in the forums), please let us know what you spend it on.

I’ve now sent out the $1,000 worth of prizes from our forum launch contest, congratulations to everybody who won.

I am still waiting for one physical address to send the Ironman Sleek Triathlon 50 Lap Watch out to, the winning member was vousami. So vousami please PM me your address ASAP so that I can get it shipped to you (if I don’t receive it in 10 days or so I’ll raffle this one out again).

The other good bit of contest news is that I’ve got another $1,000+ worth of gadget prizes so I’ll be announcing a fair few new community contest shortly :).

Our $1,000 gadget give away is officially over. Congratulations to Case on winning the first prize. He choose the Wicked Laser which is very cool and I’m happy to report that we have another 3 wicked lasers to give away in future contests :).

If you’re an active member of our gadget forums (and if not why not!!) and would like to see if you’ve won any of the other 17 prizes, check out the prize winners thread.

Congratulations once again to all the winners. We will be holding contests on a monthly basis so if you want to take part in the next contest register in the forums and become a part of our friendly but some what geeky community.

Thanks again to Brando, Gizoo, Wicked Lasers, Beer Clip, Gadget Box and Just Buy Online for their generous donations.

Digital Life is described as the ultimate consumer technology, gaming & entertainment event of the year. It’s being held in New York at the Javits Center from October 12 until October 15.

It looks like it will be a very cool event (which unfortunately I can’t attend as I’m still mid house move). Tickets normally cost $12 but I’m pleased to say CG readers can get in for free, simply go to the order tickets page and enter the Source Code “INSIDER”, hey presto free tickets :).

We’ve also been given some VIP tickets to give-away, so if you can definitely attend and would like a chance of winning a VIP ticket simply reply to this thread in the CG forum, stating your interest and I’ll add your name to the hat and I’ll draw the winners out this Sunday.

It’s that time again when we’re looking to recruit some new part-time writers.

The sort of people we’re after should have the following characteristics:

• Keen technology and gadget follower
• You find the best and most obscure gadgets before all your friends
• Write in an informative and social manner
• Wicked sense of humour
• Enjoy beer (or coffee if you’re a coder)

If you think you’ve got what it takes please send us a sample of your work and a few sentences explaining why you’d like to join the CG team.

Cash is available for the right people, as well as entry and expenses to various trade show exhibitions if so desired.

Last week I switched over our RSS feed to Feedburner so that we could get some accurate stats on how many people read Coolest Gadgets via a feed reader (breakdown above).

The stats show we’re currently averaging 1,950 subscribers (hi folks), I think that’s pretty cool but would like to break the 2,000 barrier so if you’re a feed follower and enjoy reading about gadgets please feel free to subscribe.

If you’ve never heard about RSS readers before, they’re a great way to follow your favourite sites without visiting them to see if they’ve been updated (the feeds only update when the sites do). A cool and simple online reader to start off with is Bloglines. See you in the feed :).

I’m an active member (dct) of the webmaster community Digital Point, over the last month there’s been a contest for which member has the best blog and I’m happy to say we were joint third.

In first place was ShoeMoney which is all about making hard cash on the web (Jeremy who runs it makes $100K+ a month so certainly knows what he’s talking about)

In second place was my friend Jason’s blog www.yfs1.com. Jason writes about a variety of entrepenuarial subjects and his Starting a Business tutorial is a must read for anybody doing just that.

We shared third place with ProBlogger (IMO the #1 read for all active bloggers) and Find in Forums (not one I’d heard of before but I’m now a subscriber :)).

Considering all the other blogs are webmaster related I’m pretty chuffed (not used that word in ages) that our gadget blog was up there.

So thanks to all 10 people that voted for us, Blogmaster for starting the poll and Humm for nominating us.

We’ve just received a big batch of competition prizes from Brando (thanks again), the 8″ LCD TV looks particularly cool. If you haven’t entered our big gadget contest there is still plenty of time, check out the contest rules here and prize list.

We will be running competitions on the community forums every month, if you have any contest ideas we’d love to hear them.