CES 2008 - Glad I’m not there
If you read a lot of blogs, you have been inundated by pixel-to-pixel coverage of the annual gadgetfest happening right now in overpriced and highly annoying Las Vegas.
A couple my CES badges from years past
When I started attending CES, a show created and managed by the consumers electronics manufacturers association (CEA), it was largely a “Buyer’s Show” produced so retailers and integrators could hang out near shouts of “WHEEL OF FORTUNE” and do some deals that would affect what the general public would find in their local stores for the next calendar year.
As the years went on, the number of retailers shrank as Walmart square footage grew — and in 2008, the majority of electronics are purchased in “Big Box” stores like Best Buy and Circuit City. The content industry changed too — as the digital and Internet-delivered media avalanche landed quicker than you could say “ubiquity”.
There will always be a room full of neon tube lit Ferraris and their 400 speakers at CES but virtually every other consumer electronic category has evolved to the point where you wouldn’t recognize them as they are now, fifteen years ago — let alone four decades ago when CES began.
The CES of today attracts a very different crowd than the CES I remember. The quickest growing classes of attendee fall within the prosumer and fanboy group. (the bleeding edge of early adopters who want to own or “review” the latest and greatest toys).
Is CES at the crossroads of turning into a direct-market show, where the retailer and integrator filters are removed from the value chain? Is it morphing into a new entity all together like Comdex evolved from PCs to Internet (before imploding) and NAB has survived and stayed relevant from RF through the inclusion of Cable and now IP.
I don’t think CES or NAB or any of the other shows quite represent what I’d like to see in a Media-Communications-Content-Electronics show today — looking forward to a “Whole Communications Show and Conference” sometime in the future.
Update: My next post will share some ideas I have on what the “Whole Communications Show and Conference” would be like.