Has CES Lost Its Star Appeal? 100
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by
samzenpus
from the not-so-bright dept.
from the not-so-bright dept.
An opinion piece by tech writer David Gilbert looks at how CES might be losing some of its luster. "It's hard to know who the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) really benefits. A common perception is that CES is the place where all the major technology companies launch their latest and greatest gadgets. But this is simply not the case. Let's look at 2012 as an example. Last year's most talked about consumer technology products (in no particular order) were: the iPhone 5, iPad 3, iPad mini, Microsoft Surface, Samsung Galaxy S3, Google Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle Fire HD and the Wii U. How many were launched at CES 2012? None."
Um, good? (Score:5, Insightful)
The journo in the article is saying that CES is failing because companies no longer use it to launch their latest iteration of gadget. Instead, it's being used to showcase their pie-in-the-sky aspirations. It's becoming less a PR mouthpiece, and more a tech demo for cool, but not production-ready, tech.
In my opinion, that can only be a good thing.
Horrible article - auto-plays video (Score:5, Insightful)
An article that automatically plays two videos, one with full audio, upon being loaded? Such actions should preclude such articles from being posted.
Won't somebody please think of the bandwidth?!
Tech is commodified now (Score:5, Insightful)
Same with technology. It's a faceless world-wide empire of giant companies, no one cares except the people directly involved in creating the things. We just shop online, say "ohh shiny" and buy whatever.
Stuff is also a lot cheaper so there's less risk in buying things on sight alone. Back when an empty motherboard cost thousands of dollars, it made sense to spend time and money to check things out in person. Not anymore.
The only thing that can change that equation is booth babes.
Where is Ceren Ercen these days anyhow?
Changing market (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, lot if not all of those announcements were done by big companies doing their own, exclusive events, focused mostly single products, very awaited and with long enough preannoucements campaigns, usually not meant for shared space/attention with other companies.
Not surprised... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fairly well known musicians play at music festivals, where they can be one of many drawing people to go there. Superstars hold a concert and fill a stadium all by themselves. Why launch at CES if you're big enough to get all the attention you want on your own without sharing the spotlight?
CES glory days were the 1980s (Score:5, Insightful)
CES's glory days were the 1980s, during the first personal computer boom. Then, everyone I think introduced stuff at CES... I remember reading old Compute! and Byte for goings on at the CES - there were reviews of the new Ataris, Apples, Commodores... and then I think even console systems were introduced there as well. So, CES meant, PC in its exciting newness, and already the luster faded a bit as computers became more commonplace. I imagine CES is still pretty cool, and if I were a retailer, I would think I'd want to check it out for the not marquee labels that introduce things that might still sell. But its not the center of the computing universe that, for one brief time, it was.
I dont care about any tradeshow. (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea of a tradeshow somehow being important is just stupid. Its companies showcasing their products, they dont need a show to do that. They could just do it themselves without wasting millions of dollars. Samsung want to show off some kick ass new tv with video, descriptions and pictures? They could do that on their website anytime they want to.
Tradeshows are basically just scams run by the people who operate them. Companies spend a lot of money and time and energy to be at them for no real reason. If companies actually collectively said "We spent like 8 million bucks going to e3 and ces. How about we dont do that this year, save 8 million bucks and just advertise on our websites" then ces would be no more and millions would be saved.
I know tradeshows are just ways of getting advertising time and all but I just dont give a shit.
1- I still cant own or purchase items at a tradeshow so I dont care.
2- I can read about products in articles on companies websites or read related news on websites I frequent.
3- You dont actually learn anything from tradeshows and can not get an honest opinion because youre seeing a carefully crafted and setup demo unit. You dont get to see the real world end product or hear opinions on it from people who have used the product for any length of time in the real world. I dont buy tech stuff anymore until its been out atleast a month.
4- Tradeshows made a lot of sense back in the day. But when I can read previews before a product even comes out at a hundred websites, see a thousand video reviews once it comes out and basically get every single bit of information I could possibly want and a whole lot more on the internet anytime I want it, why do I need a tradeshow? The internet and google are my personal tradeshow thats there for me 24 hours a day. You can get information anywhere and anytime you want now. Back in the day all you had were magazines and occasional newsletters so a tradeshow was important because it allowed people to connect, but now I can connect with anyone in the world while sitting on a toilet in a airplane flying over the ocean.
I get so much god damn advertising, sales pitches and annoying slogans thrown at me in my life everyday the last thing I want is to subject myself to more of it in a giant room of high concentration sales people. I went to e3 awhile back 3 years in a row and god damn, the was enough to last me my whole life.
Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever since they kicked out the consumer.
We have the Internet now (Score:4, Insightful)
We don't really need trade shows to show us new products and technology anymore.
Re:I dont care about any tradeshow. (Score:5, Insightful)
But when I can read previews before a product even comes out at a hundred websites, see a thousand video reviews once it comes out and basically get every single bit of information I could possibly want and a whole lot more on the internet anytime I want it, why do I need a tradeshow?
Do you work in sales, marketing or business development? I go to numerous shows per year, and they're all about the meetings that go on in the background. Discussions around sales channels, marketing, training - Pricing. Trade shows are an opportunity where eveyone is already all together, so they're a highly efficient way to get business done. You can go on one plane flight instead of 20.
Re:Consumers vs Techs (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing is, it wasn't a consumer show. It was a journalist show. There's no such thing as a consumer show anyway - if consumers were excited enough about the goods in question, they'd be tech enthusiasts by definition.
Re:Um, good? (Score:5, Insightful)
CES has been drowning for awhile, now. It's too soon after the new year for people to have any energy and really prepare. It's filled with crap that is too far in the future to be relevant, but too close to today to be interesting (for example, 4k televisions -- which are too expensive and far away from being even remotely affordable but too near in our future to be pie-in-the-sky-fantasy-interesting). It's filled with wireless speakers, soundbars, ipad covers, iphone attachments, shitty phones, next year's shitty ultrabooks and tablets that will be considered a failure the year after *that*, and lots of shitty little gimmicks. It's basically like being subscribed to the Engadget website's RSS feed, but in meats-space. Ick.
I feel bad for people who have to attend CES to report on it, these days. Especially those doing it for TV and net shows, where they have to produce a lot of content in quick succession. Dealing with the crowds and Vegas itself and the endless halls of schlocky garbage for what amounts to very little that really gets your tech-buzz or day-dreaming purring seems like an absolutely miserable task.