Category Archives: CES

One makes millions, millions make $1. CES 2012 and the decline of Journalism

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Here at CES Las Vegas you can feel the energy of the thousands of bloggers, all of whom hope to spawn their own success stories.    I like bloggers and blogging a lot, but I think much of the early promise of blogger as citizen journalist is getting co-opted by commercialization – the need to eat creates a challenging relationship with sponsors and content.   Not a huge surprise, but I think the era of “citizen journalist” is probably going to be short lived as we transition to more of a combination of commercial and/or groupthink models of journalism.

Very few will be able to make it big online doing their own thing, or even make a living here. That’s OK – capitalism and journalism are a game of survival of the fittest, and most people aren’t fit to write quality stuff, even by sometimes  pathetic blogging standards.  Even those who ARE good writers are unlikely to make much money online, and then only when they work for large well capitalized sites.

Many silly articles  suggest otherwise:

guardiantech Guardian Tech …The writer who made millions by self-publishing online bit.ly/wdgj0J

A more relevant story would be how millions make very little rather than how one makes millions, but that story is not as interesting….which brings us to the challenge of journalism in general, especially commercial journalism.

Here at CES there are about 6000 “press”, many in young blogging teams writing for medium to large websites covering the show.     That’s great in one sense but in another it reminds me of pro sports, where millions with *some* talent are filtered to a few thousand who actually make it to the big time and a few hundred who actually make it big.    Again, that’s a virtuous cycle in one sense, though I will smack you if you suggest that the success comes from quality writing or true innovation.   There’s some of that online, but in terms of online journalism its mostly a race to the bottom where gimmicks and garbage will triumph.   Again, that’s OK and inevitable but its somewhat unfortunate that we’ll see seasoned good thinking journalist folks replaced by ditzy kook celebrity gossip.

… end rant …  Gotta go find Justin Beiber here at CES and get an invite to the SOUL Headphone party by Ludacris !

CES 2012 please … wait … for …. me!

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Well I should be reporting live from CES 2012 right now rather than the Medford Oregon Airport where fog kept me from leaving yesterday for CES Las Vegas, the world’s premier consumer electronics show held every January.

I was supposed to be reporting live over at our Retirement blog from this morning’s keynote at the Silvers Summit, the CES Venue for the intersection of retirement and technology.

If I DO ever manage to get out – we’re not going to make our new 9:15am departure – I’ll have a lot of new pictures and technology content a several of the blogs:

CES 2012 at Technology Report will be the main tech reporting from the conference.

CES 2012 at the Retire USA Retirement Blog will feature some of the technology of special interest to those over 50.   Over 50 is hardly a “senior” in my view, but that’s the cutoff for AARP and the Silvers Summit.   In fact I think we need a new name for those of us over 50 and I don’t think “seniors” or even “silvers” is really the right angle here.    What’s next, the “Ripe” generation?

I’ll also be posting a bit at Las Vegas Blog, LasVegas1.   I’m staying downtown at the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas’ oldest venue at One Fremont Street.   Looking forward to the history as well as the relaxed feel of the downtown area, which has undergone a fair amount of rennovation and remodelling over the past decade in an effort by the downtown hotels to capture some of the shiny luster of the strip, which has been  “the” Las Vegas for most tourists for some time now.

Affiliate West Summit Contest from Shoemoney

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Dear Staff of Shoemoney (SOSs), Shoemoney, and fellow Affiliate Americans –

Honestly you probably will not  and probably should not  choose me for the Shoemoney Affiliate Summit West Contest.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a pretty good guy, fun to hang out with, and fairly well informed.   Heck, I might even have a few tricks of the trade you haven’t heard about, although I’ve always been impressed with Shoemoney’s well informed, no-nonsense, experimental approaches to internet marketing, particularly his very clever experiments with Facebook advertising a few years back that were very cleverly written up in a powerpoint for, I think, an Affiliate Summit conference.

I also appreciate how Shoemoney and other world class search marketing fellows like Aaron Wall, Dave Naylor, and Todd Malicoat will share a lot of valuable insight and information both at conferences and online, even to those who don’t buy their stuff.    These are smart and clever guys and prospective internet marketing folks should listen to what they have to say, though they should also be aware that “hype” is very much a part of that business and very few people are able to make a good online living regardless of their approaches.   Most of the folks who do have been around a long, long time and benefit from old websites with high authority and the free Google traffic this provides to them.   Before you spend much money on advice you should read the free stuff, especially the single best source for search optimization and search penalties – Matt Cutts blog.   Matt is a great guy and is Google’s spam cop.   You  cross his search optimizing advice at your own peril.  Believe me, I know this from a lot of experience with many sites  over many years.

So even though I’m well aware of Shoe’s great personal success I’m generally skeptical that his good advice will transfers well to the degree others need to make enough money online to drop the day job.    You’ll be hard pressed to convince me otherwise which is probably the main reason I should NOT win this contest – however it shakes out I’ll blog the results honestly.

Another reason is that I’m already scheduled to fly to Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show – CES 2012 – on the 9th.   I’ll be reporting that conference for my tech blog ” Technology Report ” as I have been for several years.  Of course since I’ve never been to an Affiliate Summit I would change my flight to a bit earlier to hang with the Shoemoney Man.   I have a lot of questions for him about my modestly successful internet projects and some upcoming ones and how affilations (vs Google Adsense) might help improve our bottom line.

Another reason I’m a bad choice is that I’m already doing pretty well with my online ventures.  Nothing amazing yet, but we do OK with a US History website, US Travel site, and a really neat new Retirement planning project I’m finishing up right now.    As much as I’d like more advice from Shoe and his clever staff, it might be better used on somebody who is just starting out.

Oh, there is ONE reason you SHOULD choose me for the contest.  If I win I will consider Shoemoney’s expert advice enough reward for me and I will donate *all* the proceeds to my favorite charity “Room to Read“.  They build libraries and schools in poor countries and are simply an awesome way for those of us lucky enough to live here to give back a little and help make the world a better and safer place.

This donation will include any blackjack winnings.   All I’d ask from Shoe and the great Shoemoney gang would be to help me promote Room to Read however he sees fit.

So, there you have it!    Good luck to everybody with the Affiliate Summit Shoemoney contest and, win or lose, I hope to see you in Vegas baby!

Joe Duck / Joe Hunkins

CES 2011 Party List … Begins!

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CES 2011 Party UPDATES HERE

 

 

CES Party List for Technology Report’s
***   CES 2011 Coverage ***

IMPORTANT:   Almost all the parties at CES are “Invitation Only” and the procedure varies from party to party.    Bloggers and Press folks can often score invitations by contacting the party sponsors, but don’t just show up and expect to get in.

Some of the best parties are announced at the last minute or somewhat secretly to those attending press conferences or other sponsor events.    Those probably won’t make it to any of the party lists.

CES Parties on Tuesday Jan 4th

5 – 8pm CES Unveiled at the Venetian Ballroom

7 – 10 pm Start-Up Debut at the House of Blues Foundation Room, Mandalay Bay Casino.   For Registered Media   startupdebut@gmail.com.


CES Parties on Wednesday January 5

7 – 10pm Pepcom Digital Experience! Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas

7:30pm  Audi at the Palms  Ghost Bar

7:30  – 11 p.m GigaByte Room Marco Polo 707, Venetian Hotel

CES Parties on Thursday January 6

6 – 8pm   NPD Reception – Bellagio (Client Invitation Only)

6 – 10pm  Showstoppers – Wynn, Lafitte Ballroom (Invite only)

7 – 9pm   Wired Party

7 – 10pm:   Mashable Awards – New York, New York Hotel and Cirque du Soleil Zumanity
(Open to all, tickets $32 and up)

Friday January 7, 2011

4 – 7pm   Official 2011 CES Tweet Up.  Las Vegas Hilton  Space Quest Lounge

6:00 PM – 8:00 PM:  FashionWare Show/KAPi Awards – Fashion Show Mall (Invite Only)

5:30 – 8:30 pm It Won’t Stay in Vegas Blogger Party – Atomic Museum, 755 E. Flamingo.

6:30  – 9:30 pm NetShelter CES Mixer – LAVO Nightclub at The Palazzo.
Register here

CES Parties on Saturday, January 8

5 p.m – midnight Xtremesystems Party – Pole Position Raceway, 4175 S. Arville Road.

Sources for this list include Party Sponsor Contacts + CESPartyList.com +  Karen Thomas PR Party List.   BE SURE to confirm your invitations as many parties won’t allow people to “drop in” without an invitation.  Yep, that includes you!

Apple iPad Launches Today. Lowest priced model only $499

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The new iPad tablet computer from Apple launched today and I’m going to try to summarize the reviews as they come in – which frankly is a better indication of the quality of the device than if I had one in my own hands…. which I don’t ….  However at an iPad Price of only $499 this looks like an amazing device at a great price.

One of the big issues at CES 2010 was the fact that Apple’s Tablet would almost certainly raise the computing bar in terms of expectations for the “robustness” of something that is a cross between a full computer and an e-Reader.    To my way of thinking (ie rational computing purchases)  good tablets may wind up as e-Reader killers – or at least will force e-readers to become real computers and offer a lot more features than they currently offer.

Why buy a Kindle or Nook when you can have a full computer and internet at your fingertips for only marginally higher cost?    At $499 the Apple Tablet “entry level” model is coming in much cheaper than the predicted $1000 price tag – perhaps as part of Apple’s normally brilliant quality and marketing approaches which generally lead to early widespread adoption of devices.

iPad Apple Tablet Computer

iPad from Apple

CES 2010 Coverage at Technology Report

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The show is over and I’m back home in lovely rural Oregon, which is a lot like Las Vegas … if you take away the mega Casinos, lavish hotels, hundreds of national class restaurants, 24/7 dining, hundred-million-dollar theaters, zombie gamblers, throngs of people, massive convention centers, and the nasty city underbelly you find just away from the fancy venues.

For the next several days I’ll be writing up the show from the approximately 400 pictures I took of CES 2010 and Las Vegas over the past week.   That coverage will mostly be over at Technology Report

Although I tend to see things through Web 2.0 colored glasses I really think CES 2010 this year was really pushing the 3D TVs (skeptical of how well consumers will receive this) while ironically much more powerfully showcasing something something that cannot be directly sold – social networking and global device connectivity.

Tim O’Reilly and others have talked about “Web 3.0” which some see as a device-O-sphere  where our computers, cameras, phones, household appliances, cars, etc are all streaming data into online environments where that information can be used by other applications in a variety of ways.    I think we are very close to having the technical ability to do that, and soon we’ll see a lot more websites and other computerized ways to process and learn from that data stream.

Obviously there’s a downside in terms of the fact our personal drivacy is being eroded away but that ship has sailed and I’m optimistic that the Device-O-Sphere will bring us far more efficient ways to use our resources and time.

Inefficiency is massive in all sectors of the world and I think the folks who are fretting far too much about looming catastrophes from things like global warming should be spending a lot more of their valuable time helping to engineer systems that create energy and resource efficiencies by

1.  Finding the waste and 2. eliminating some of that waste.

FYI – start with your conventional water heater – for most turning it down a few degrees won’t create a noticeable change yet it will save more energy than switching off lights from now  through the climate apocalypse.

Technology Report

CES 2010 in Las Vegas

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I’m off to Las Vegas for CES 2010 so most of the posts will be over at  Technology Report.    The press events begin Tuesday so I’ll have Monday to play some Table Tennis at the excellent Las Vegas Table Tennis Club.    I understand they actually have two clubs there but I’ve only played at the one on Industrial about a mile from the Trump Tower.    Monday is a local tournament night so it’ll be a lot of good play for sure.

CES kicks into gear on Tuesday with the big press event “CES Unveiled”.     I think there’s a tendency now to release news early and avoid the tsunami of stories and press that come out from the show starting about Tuesday and lasting through the following week.    The big attention from mainstream media will come on Thursday – Saturday as the full conference kicks into gear, and I’m guessing this will create even more buzz than usual as everybody is looking to see how the tech sector weathered the economic storms and how it plans to move ahead.

I’m especially looking forward to our backstage Cirque du Soleil Tech tour at the KA theeater at the MGM grand on Wednesday, and then watching the show from the Tech box on Thursday with some other bloggers.     Cirque was fantastic getting this tour set up where we’ll see the inner workings of the show from several technology angles.

So join me at CES 2010 over at Technology Report!

Press Release Primer for CES Exhibitors

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The 2011 CES Party List will be live soon at Technology Report

As we gear up to cover the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week over at Technology Report my email box is simply flooded with PR pitches from hundreds of the thousands of companies that will be exhibiting at the show.

The pitches vary in size and scope but most share a pretty common and I think a very uninspired format along the lines of   “You will want to check out our products”    “We have extraordinary innovation in …  iPOD accessories (!) ”  “Would you like to interview our product manager?”

Here are my three PR tips for the firms that … well … maybe ought to be doing something else:

1.  Personalization Matters.   I’d guess the response to personalized emails is at least twice that of a simple canned message, even when it’s just a name from the Press database but ideally where you’ve bothered to figure out where the person is writing.  This is one of the best PR opportunities of the year, so it seems you should at least target a handful of bloggers who write specifically about your stuff.     Challenge them a bit to critique the product.   Consider going for several “smaller” blogs rather than trying to get lucky with a feature in Engadget or Gizmodo, where the whim of an angry review alone could hurt your products reputation.    If your product is great they’ll get around to it eventually, and if the smaller guys don’t like it you probably need improvements before the big time anyway.

2.  Parties matter.  It’s not fair but neither is the world.   Certainly business in general isn’t fair.   So if you want some attention and you’ve already invested tens of thousands in staff and exhibits you probably should follow the lead of the big CES *playaas* and at least throw a small party.    What would be a clever  time for this party?  Monday night before CES, when a lot of folks have come into town but generally there are *no* parties yet.     Tuesday after CES Unveiled (the big press event) and Wednesday night are also generally pretty open for many press attendees who tend to get into town a few days early for the Press events.   The *bad* night is Friday, when your little party will have to compete with  the big ticket gigs like the Monster concert and several other parties thrown that night that attract most of the bloggers and press.   I think my favorite event at all of CES was a small poker party at Hard Rock Casino, thrown by SONY to launch the game “Pirates of the Burning Sea”.  I’m sure it wasn’t cheap –  probably ran them perhaps  $100+ per person for perhaps 100 people who attended, but it was a superb venue to generate the positive buzz they needed for the game.   $10,000 is chump change by SONY standards yet they captured attention of a lot of media for the entire evening.

Getting attention early gets you pre-CES buzz in the search rankings to boot, because by Saturday your product announcement – no matter how big – is going to be drowned out by the 1000 other announcements coming out of the show.

3.  Products matter.    For some of you some product humility is more likely to win supporters than product hype.   It’s laughable when an overzealous PR person waxes poetically, capturing your attention for a moment until you realize they’ve penned an ode to a cheap plastic cartoon  iPhone case or the equivalent.   Nothing wrong with those products – they represent an extraordinarily large market –  but your time is probably better spent targeting buzzworthy folks and sending them samples or … throwing a party … rather than trying to explain why bloggers should be scrambling to do a feature about your plastic cartoon iPod case.

Louis Vuitton iPod Case:  $280

OMG I’m writing about iPod Cases!

See you at CES!

Brain enhancement through technology – just say YES!

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Over at Read Write Web, The most excellent Marshall Kirkpatrick was suggesting and continues to think that connecting our brains to the internet – things like Internet Brain Implants – are a bad idea.

As much as I don’t like to challenge a fellow Oregonian, I could not disagree with Marshall more on this issue for several reasons:

The first is practical.   Invasive technologies that are wonderful are here already in the form of cochlear implants for hearing enhancements and even crude artificial eyes using brain implants.    Less invasive technologies that use brain wave controller devices (e.g. Emotiv Headsets and some simpler fun games) are here and will be coming soon to a brain near yours.

Regardless of whether other brain enhancements are good or bad, why fight the inevitable rather than just working with it?     Although nobody yet offers internet access it should be available within a few years.

Think of the amazing advantages, especially when we can get the communication flowing in both directions at computer speeds – which are generally much faster than those obtained via organic transmissions.     Language enhancements alone suggest to me that this would have amazing value, and I think more than a few high schoolers will enjoy computing calculus equations without any study.

Will these new abilities make us lazy?    It’s impossible to know, but I’d guess that the intellectual explosion we’ll see as enhancements hit the marketplace will bring far more solutions than problems as people can spend the huge amount of time once spent *learning*, *doing things* instead.

Brain implants?   Sign me up, Scotty!

Changing the world, one PR firm at a time

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The CES 2010 pitches are coming in strong now as John and I get ready to cover the year’s biggest technology event over at  Technology Report.

I was so happy today to see one of them signing off saying they were a proud supporter of the Room to Read Project, which is a major effort to work towards world wide literacy and education.   Readers of this blog know I’m a huge fan of that kind of project, and one of the reasons I’m very optimistic about the world’s future is that for I think the first time in history it’s become very, very “fashionable” to support global poverty reduction efforts in even the strongest bastions of capitalism (e.g. big time PR firms).

Now, cynics will suggest – correctly to some extent – that part of the motivation when capitalists support charity is to benefit from the positive buzz.    However I’m fine with that, and furthermore I’m *glad*  to see potential win-win economic relationships develop around charities like this.