So kind of a big day for me: RCRD LBL rolled out a redesign of the front page that better highlights all of the awesome music we’re putting out there AND Ryan Block just announced that he’s leaving Engadget to work on a totally new project with me. This is about as good as I think my life can get, I’ve never been more excited or happier about the stuff I’m working on. The redesign of RCRD LBL caps off Phase 1 of the site; we’re going to be rolling out a TON of new features and new sites over the next nine months or so in Phase 2. I can’t say as much about what I’m working on with Ryan, but I will say that I’m really looking forward to launching it in the near future (but not TOO near).

Can anyone recommend a good alternative to Sitemeter? They’ve been having “major internal system problems” since last week, and while we’re already using Google Analytics at RCRD LBL, I like the real-time stats offered by Sitemeter so had been using both up until this weekend.

I suppose it’s not a secret that we’re launching today, but I’m still pretty damn excited to be finally taking the wraps off of my latest site, RCRD LBL. We just went live a few moments ago, head on over!

The new Downtown offices are coming soon. RCRD LBL itself is coming a bit sooner.

P.S. – Yeah, we’ve let the building’s owners know that they misspelled “Digital”.

Well, now that it’s clear that we won’t be seeing any gPhones until sometime in the 2nd half of 2008, I have a difficult decision to make: what phone will I use for the next 8-12 months until the first Android-powered phones are available? (And that’s assuming that at least one of the first models to go on sale will be one I want to buy.) I’m beyond tired of my Treo 700p, but so far I haven’t found a phone that has quite the right mix of QWERTY keyboard, 3G connectivity, and support for Google’s Java-based Mobile Gmail client. Some of the new BlackBerrys come close, but I don’t love the UI so much, and while I’ve gotten Mobile Gmail working on Windows Mobile, the experience isn’t as seamless or well-integrated as it is on my Treo 700p. I might just keep waiting….

Ryan and I sat in on the GigaOm Show a couple of weeks ago when I was out in SF for the TechCrunch 40. Makes me miss the old days of the Engadget podcast, which we put on hiatus this summer because of how difficult it had become to fit its production into our increasingly hectic schedules.

Man, now Brian too! Brian pinged me earlier today to let me know that he was hanging it up here at WIN, officially marking the end of our three-and-a-half year partnership. Working with Brian has been amazing experience, Brian has the most intense work ethic of anyone I’ve ever met and single-handedly built and developed Blogsmith into a world-class content management system. I know he’s involved with ComicMix now, but if anyone deserves some time off, it’s Brian. Hard to believe I’m the last one left…

I know it’s been a while since I talked about this, but I was just thinking the other day about Dave Winer’s panel at Mix07 about creating the perfect podcast player and thought: Why don’t we do a unconference about this? We saw so much interest and excitement about the prospect of building one, it’d be awesome to get a bunch of smart, creative people all in the same place at the same time to talk about it. I could see UI experts interacting with hardware engineers, software gurus chatting with podcasters about what features they’d want for producing podcasts, gadget enthusiasts (like me) talking about what works and what doesn’t about the current players that are out there, etc. I have no idea whether it’d get us any closer to getting one built, but it’s hard to imagine that SOMETHING positive wouldn’t come out of so many motivated people coming together with a common goal in mind. Dave, you up for it? I’ll be back in San Francisco next month, I’m sure we could throw something together.

Crazy week, huh? I hate talking about Engadget over here, since technically this is supposed to be my personal blog, but I would like to say thanks to everyone for their patience and understanding during this whole situation.

Well, I finally made the pages of The New Yorker, my favorite magazine. It’s just a couple of quotes in an profile of Walt Mossberg, but I’ll take it!

Can’t believe that it’s actually happening, but Judith Meskill is leaving WIN. She’s one of the few people actually predates me at the company, and it’s truly hard to conceive of this place without her holding down the fort and watching our back. Judith went way beyond what you could ever expect from someone. She put her heart and soul into making WIN great, and just generally set the tone for the entire organization (yes, even more than Jason did!), and I’m excited to find out what she does next!

I’m off to Orlando for CTIA, anyone else going?

I’m already back from SXSW. Yesterday’s panel went fairly well (I managed not to say anything too stupid, plus the other panelists were pretty damn sharp), and then I squeezed in a few panels and parties before I had to head back to NYC this afternoon. I won’t go on and on about how all anyone talked about was Twitter, it seemed to be the only common topic of conversation in Austin and I’m sure it’s getting blogged to death right now.

A couple of speaking engagements this week: First up is the PSFK Conference on Tuesday, March 6th, where I’m speaking in the afternoon on a panel titled “Media as Creative Agency”. Then it’s off to Austin for SXSW, where on Saturday morning I’m speaking on a panel moderated by my old friend Laura Moorhead titled “Emerging Social and Technology Trends.” Which should be easy to cover in under an hour.

I speak on panels fairly regularly, but the one I’m most looking forward to right now is the PSFK Conference which takes place here in NYC on Tuesday, March 6th. If you’re interested in coming you can check out the line up (and buy tix) here.