Today, we’re taking the wraps off DealNewsroom.com. As usual, we’re launching the site in real-time, so pardon some of the dust.

Like its predecessor, DealNewsroom.com is all about giving you the digest version of tech deals out there, so you get just the best deals… and none of the boring deal chatter.

We’re kicking off with Black Friday 2009 coverage, but we’ll be announcing giveaways and other surprises in the near future. As we announced, the transition to Newsroom Network is off to a great start, and DealNewsroom.com is the first site to make good on that commitment.

DealNewsroom.com

Readers of CheapenGadget.com, fear not. All your bookmarks, RSS feed subscriptions, and links will carry over just as before.

Hi everyone, we’re a bit past the middle of the month, and it’s time for a brief update on Full Circle.

First, I want to thank those that have covered Full Circle so far. We’ve struggled to get media attention in this difficult startup environment. We believe much of this is due to our developer-focused launch, and we’re moving full steam ahead with tweaking and finalizing our consumer announcement.

Over the past couple of months, we’ve talked to hundreds, if not thousands of developers, gamers, and even non-gamers about Full Circle. It has been quite an experience, and we announced Full Circle like we did for that reason; so that we could quietly collect feedback and develop our product. We’re not fans of stealth mode, and this was a good balance.

I won’t take up your time going over every tweak that we’ve learned. But, I will give you a short list of some of the big things that we’re changing. First, a lot of non-gamers were excited about Full Circle, because we’re bridging a lot of worlds. Who says Boxee and Hulu can’t get along in the same box? We certainly think that they can. And, who says you can’t pull all that off with your old laptop? Full Circle has, after all, been all about combining the concepts of console and computer, so that makes sense too.

Developers, on the other hand, are reluctant to sign on to a console that suffers from Phantom Syndrome. That’s the term that we coined for it… basically, it’s the problem of offering a video game platform that reminds people of the Phantom Console. Now, we’ve worked hard to avoid this, by, well, actually showing folks the console in live demos. But, as noted up at the top… this is a difficult startup environment. Simply showing stuff working isn’t good enough right now.

As such, we’re going to chart out a path to what we announced initially. By underwriting development using a fusion of in-house and crowdsourcing, our initial goal is to master the home theater market, delivering a platform that fusions content sources together… so Pandora and FanCast, can play along with Boxee and Hulu. And, so that all the content on all your computers just follows you to your HDTV, naturally.

We haven’t forgotten about video games, quite the opposite. It’s the focus of Full Circle, and it will continue to be. What we’re doing, is making sure we get the foundation as solid as possible, before gaming goes on top. As we’ve said all along, we want to do this right.

So, in splitting the difference there, we said we would start selling dev kits by year’s end. We’ve decided to make dev kits a free thing. In order to do so, however, we’re going to be bumping the announcement back by a month, to December. This will allow us to gracefully spin off our Newsroom Network sites into a brand of their own, and then focus completely on Full Circle.

- Christopher Price, CEO

One final thing… we just finished trademarking the super-secret name for Full Circle (which, we can’t say enough at this point, is just a code name). Every single person we’ve told it to is in love with it, so we think that’s going to work from day one next month.

After our quiet developer campaign for Full Circle, we’re back in the valley, and back at hosting our monthly WordPress meetups. Once again at Red Rock Coffee in Mountain View, we’ll be chatting about all things WordPress at 3 PM tomorrow.

Please be sure to RSVP, and yes, seating is really limited this time around. We’re working on expanding that, as well as adding additional events where we’re not blabbing on, and on, and on, about publishing software.

And yes, as usual, we’re giving free coffee to those that attend.

A lot of people are talking about a Boxee Box, which is slated for announcement on December 7.

We’ll beat them to the punch with a Boxee Box for everyone. We may not have it ready for you on December 7, but Full Circle already includes Boxee. And, it can install on any old Mac or PC (like, the one collecting dust in your garage), without any need for even a copy of Windows. And, of course, Full Circle will be in your hands, for free, before Boxee Box is out.

Now, go forth and spread the word! Full Circle is already well on its way, and we’re wrapping up our next wave of announcements right now.

I should note that this is great news for the folks at Boxee, as we’re happy to be providing the first free “Boxee Box, sans buying a new box” distribution.

Just in case folks were wondering when all our publishing sites would see those “big improvements”, as part of the Newsroom Network transition… we’re ready to provide more specifics.

Our plan, as originally announced, was to complete the Newsroom Network spin-off by the end of the year. We’re on-track to complete that. However, by the end of the month, the sites will be operating under the Newsroom Network umbrella. That’s right… we’ll have the public face of the transition done by the end of October.

We know you’re also all curious about Full Circle. November will kick off both the shipment of our first Dev Kit release, and the unveiling of our branding. No more cheesy Full Circle code-name!

We’re happy to roll out the first three MechaWorks Crowdsource projects. Go check them out.

As they say, breaking news changes everything. With significantly more gadget news on CentralGadget.com today than expected… we had to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

The good news is that we have the first few Crowdsourcing projects finalized, and they’ll be online shortly. Sorry we couldn’t get those projects out precisely on the 16th, but you can take this time to check out the HP DreamScene coverage on CentralGadget.com, as well as our iPhone OS 3.1 jailbreak coverage on PhoneNews.com.

And yes, we’re a PwnageTool mirror as usual…

Update: Sorry folks, it’s going to be one more day. I could point at the legal team complaining, but, well, we’re too busy to point fingers… it just has to get done.

We’re on-site at GDC Austin, ready to sit down with developers and talk Full Circle.

And, we’ve got a surprise for attendees… every badge at the show has Full Circle written all over it. Photos later today, but safe to say that we’re getting the word out about Full Circle.

Want to meet at the show? Email me or contact our press room.

We’re also hard at work on getting our first Crowdsourcing projects online, we’re currently aiming for those to go online some time tomorrow.

Today we announced what MechaWorks has really been working on behind-the-scenes… well, since day one of MechaWorks.

We’ve been building a video game console. And, we’ve code-named it Full Circle: The world’s most powerful console.

You can read all the announcement info at the Full Circle Product Page, where you’ll find the liveblog, photos, and Dev Kit information for developers.

We’re also announcing today that what we’re known for, our great news sites, will be spun off into a separate company, Newsroom Network. You’ll find more about the transition here.

Obviously, you’re going to have a lot of questions. And, we aren’t going to get everything right on day one. We need your questions and your feedback. So, please, follow us on our new Twitter feed. Ask any question there, and the whole team will work to answer as many of them as possible. If Twitter isn’t your thing, you can also subscribe to our blog (the RSS feed URL hasn’t changed).

What’s next for us? We’re packing our bags for GDC Austin, where we’re going to be talking directly to developers, and getting them excited about Full Circle.

Don’t forget, we’re going to need your help to convince developers that open, cross-platform, cloud gaming is the way to go. So, stay tuned, we built MechaWorks for Full Circle. And, we want to thank those early adopters that tuned into all our sites. Without you, it would have taken far longer to get all this off the ground.

We’ve announced that we’re announcing a gadget. Now, we’re telling you when we’re going to announce it. It’s slated for September 10, starting at 10 AM, in Sunnyvale.

Because seating will be limited, this will pretty much be a media-only event. But, we always make room for our readers. So, we’re going to give away 10 seats to you, our readers.

To win one of those seats at our announcement, you’ve got to guess what gadget we’re building. And, the contest ends if it leaks out, so don’t hold back on your entry waiting for a leak. If nobody gets it, we’ll pick the 10 closest entries.

Entry Suggestions:
For example, too general: Something that prints money.
And, for example, too specific: An open sourced replication of the iPod.
Just right: A brand new car!
(And no, it isn’t any of the above).

How to Enter: Send your guess to keynote-contest-su09@mechaworks.com by August 30th. Also, please note that these are considered un-obligated, unsolicited idea submissions… the lawyers made us say that.

To members of the media media: Don’t feel snubbed if you haven’t gotten an invite yet. We’re working on it. If you want an invite, email pr@mechaworks.com