About

Built from real PR work

I am Raoul van Wijk. For more than fifteen years I have worked on international launches across gaming, technology and entertainment, and every single one needed the same small, high stakes job done correctly.

FreeNo accountRuns in your browser

Every global announcement came down to one repeated task: convert a single embargo moment into every timezone on the media list, check daylight saving for that exact date, format the line so it cannot be misread, and make sure nobody received the wrong time. It was usually done at night, in a spreadsheet, by whoever was still awake.

That task is small enough to feel unimportant and consequential enough to lose a launch. A journalist in Sydney reading the wrong weekday publishes a day early. A CET line written as CEST shifts an hour. Nobody catches it until it is public.

Embargo Timer is the shortcut I wanted on those nights. Set the lift moment once, pick the markets your list actually reads, and copy a block that is correct for the date you chose. Nothing more.

The tool exists because the mistake is boring, common and expensive.

Correct by date

Every conversion is resolved for the exact day

Offsets come from the IANA timezone database, so GMT against BST, CET against CEST and the North American and Australian switches are read for the date you picked, not for today.

Private by default

Your embargo never reaches a server

Dates, markets, saved setups and email text stay in your own browser. Unreleased announcements are exactly the kind of thing that should not be sitting in someone else's database.

No friction

No account, no trial, no seats

You are usually forty minutes from sending. Signing up for a tool is not part of that. Open the page, set the time, copy the block, close the tab.

What this project will not do

  1. 01Send your press list anywhere, or store contacts of any kind.
  2. 02Put the timer behind a login, a trial or a per seat price.
  3. 03Track what you type. Ads sit around the tool, never inside it.
  4. 04Publish guides written by someone who has never run a launch.

Editorial policy, in short

Guides are written from launches I worked on or from documented practice. Where a claim is a judgement call, it is written as one. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and no guide links out in exchange for payment.

Corrections are welcome and are noted on the page rather than quietly edited.

Get in touch

A missing city, a timezone that reads oddly, a guide that is out of date, or a launch story worth writing up. All useful.

Usually answered within two working days, CET.