Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Tag: PodTech (Page 3 of 3)

CES Post 1: “The Year of Glass”

It’s Sunday late afternoon in Vegas, and I’m in the BlogHaus at the Bellagio. Very cool setup in the suite here (stand by for some pix later), Just chatted with Robert Scoble, and he told me they have an amazing amount of bandwidth — the best anywhere here, I’m sure. He said some 400 bloggers RSVPed, many at the last minute, a lot of ’em to take advantage of the ‘Net access, no doubt. So this place will get busy — especially after the Gates keynote, which is about to fire up at the Venetian. Right now, there are probably 50-60 people here.

But back to my first post from Vegas. Actually, this one’s not about CES per se, but rather a pre-event I attended yesterday and today called Storage Visions, across the strip at The Flamingo. Storagevisions A presentation this morning by Steve DiFranco, VP of sales and marketing for AMD, was interesting. He said that in the next three years, more glass will be sold than in the last 30! And a lot of that glass it for things we look at (not through, like windows), meaning all the many displays we have in our homes and offices on computers, TVs, phones and what have you. “This phenomenon has gone almost unnoticed,” he said. But, as you increase the amount of glass, he said, “you have to increase the amount of content you put on it” — which is certainly a focus of both this event and CES. “There are now multiple places to view content in our homes,” DiFranco said, and really everywhere we go. “And our houses must become more aware of content,” he said, referring to the huge opportunity in home networking devices (and his firm undoubtedly has some things up its sleeve in this regard).

“The real problem is the disorganization of this content,” DiFranco said. “Consumers must become content managers.” When the house gets connected, there will be less need for storage on individual devices, he explained, and more need for a “bit bucket” type of device, meaning central storage.

“The ‘connector’ becomes the next big thing after all the glass you’ve just bought,” DiFranco said. In fact, this may be the Year of Glass, but he says next year will be the “Year of the Connector.”

Today’s plugged-in consumers he called the “exposed generation” — meaning their desire to share content, a la YouTube and MySpace, et al. But, he said, they really don’t care where their stuff is stored. “So it will go where it’s cheapest and easiest to access.”

An interesting point DiFranco made in closing was that you’ll see amazingly little in the way of “the connector” at CES this year.

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Why I’m Going to CES

Unless you just returned from a desert island somewhere, perhaps you’ve heard there’s a big trade show coming up in Las Vegas? Though I was a frequent attendee of what many consider its predecessor event, Comdex, I’ve largely ignored CES — never attended it. The most I ever even paid attention to it was in January 2000, when I was part of the team that conceived and planned the brand-new Best Buy web site, which our fearless leader of the then-subsidiary, BestBuy.com (John Walden), presented in prototype form to analysts and press. I did watch a live webcast of that from BBY headquarters in Eden Prairie, MN, which was a very big deal for us.

A few weeks ago, however, I thought maybe it would be interesting to at least experience all the hoopla — so I could say I’ve seen it at least once. But, since then, I’ve really been on the fence trying to decide if I should go. Well, I am hopping on a plane today. Here’s why:

Not because I like Las Vegas or gambling. (I really, really don’t.) Not because I pretend to cover consumer electronics very well (it’s not a major focus of my blog). Not because I like gadgets. (Well, it’s not really about liking — it’s much more about not having the time or money to invest in all that stuff.) And certainly not because I like TV — in fact, I mostly hate it. So, it’s also not because I like home theater, or large-screen HDTVs, or set top boxes, or even high-end audio, either. And, I’m certainly not going because I like gaming.

Now, CES does hype itself this year by saying it’s where “content meets technology,” or something like that. Hey, content I like! But what they mean is largely digital content that plays on TVs, gaming consoles, and all those gadgets that I don’t get to play with all day long like Walt Mossberg does. But, okay, I do like cell phones and wireless and certain online or wireless consumer services categories, I guess, which are also covered somewhat at CES.

But, after all the considerations and the wondering if I really should take the time out, why I’m going to Las Vegas for a few days is simply this: “BlogHaus.” It’s an event/happening that Robert Scoble has been telling us about for the last month. (See more about it here on the PodTech site.) Bloghaus At last count, some 150 of us bloggers will be converging there to hang out in an upper-floor suite at the Bellagio, on Seagate’s dime. It’s a 24 x7 press room-slash-hangout-slash-party for bloggers of every stripe! Hey, who needs the show floor and all the sore feet that go along with it! Someone recently called this event “probably the best, and longest, blogger meetup ever”! I’m really looking forward to it, to seeing old friends and meeting new ones, and will certainly do some live blogging from there.

If you’ll be there, too, and would like to hook up, email me at graeme (at) thickins (dot) com. And if you can’t be, but have any questions or suggestions for me, let me know that, too — by email, or in a comment. Vegas, here I come!

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