I’m back from CES this year… managed to catch an earlier flight yesterday and got back to Houston in time to catch a great basketball game — Rockets vs. Lakers — last night.
I’ve had several conversations with folks about the show, what I saw there and what was interesting. Katie over at Om Malik’s blog has a good post on the Top 5 Trends at CES. I agree that THIS year’s CES was incremental, but I thought this was in contrast to last year’s CES. Last year’s CES was all about content — Google announced the availability of CBS and NBA content on Google Video, Intel announced content partnerships as a part of their VIIV campaign. Last year everyone was competing to see who could get the bigger celebrities in their keynotes (Yahoo had Ellen Degeneres, Tom Hanks, Intel had Morgan Freeman and Tom Hanks, Google had Robin Williams). Just a few months before CES, Apple had starting making TV shows available through iTunes. Last year’s CES was all about video content deals, and this was big and different news. In contrast, CES this year was only incremental. No big new technologies or products, just people trying to improve their digital devices — higher resolution, more functionality, access to more content, etc. Things that the companies exhibiting hope to improve user experience and drive volume for their products.