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Author Archives: Jeremy Toeman

Bloghaus vs Press room vs Experiencing CES

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IMG_2358 press room - mac guysPR Queen Renee Blodgett has a great article today on Old vs New Media at CES this year.  Once you’ve read it, scroll down to read Jim Louderback’s comment:

And let’s face it, if you’re hanging out in the press room at CES — or the Bloghaus at the Bellagio, sucking down free coffee and looking for your next freelance gig or some free bandwidth, you’re in the wrong place anyway.

I think Jim’s comments are spot-on.  I kept wanting to go to the Bloghaus, but kept having other things that I felt couldn’t be missed.  I’ve heard it was a great time, but I was truly amazed at the quantity of time people chose to spend there.  In my eyes, CES is so packed full of events (note to self: do not attend 4 press conferences next year – ugh), I couldn’t justify the taxi line and traffic to head over to the Bellagio Hotel to hang out with other bloggers.  Don’t get me wrong, there is no insult intended here – I had some good friends there and a lot of bloggers who I read religiously. 

IMG_2543 south hall entrancewayNow, granted, I am in this utterly tiny minority of bloggers who happens to make a living in the consumer electronics field.  For me, it was equally important to attend events as a blogger as it was to extend my personal network of consumer technology manufacturers.  Furthermore, I was asked by a client to scout new technology for possible licensing or acquisition needs.  This created a bit of a “perfect storm” (in a good way) for me where literally every booth had the potential of being interesting, either for the blog, for the client, or for me.  It’s nice when worlds like these collide.

I did hit the press room a few times, but mostly to grab a bagel or a coffee and then head back off to the floor.  While there, I couldn’t help but notice the level of “old guard” that was there.  It was like being surrounded by the ghosts of CES past.  I was impressed by the quantity of available laptops and network connections they provided for people to use.  Primarily, the two press rooms (one in the Sands, one in the LVCC) were located very conveniently to do a drop-by. 

I’d like to see CES approach bloggers differently in CES 2008 with these simple suggestions:

  • team up with & sponsor the Bloghaus, then either move it to the Renaissance (right next to LVCC) or at least have an annex there – the Bellagio is beautiful, but prohibitively far from the action.  Also, I’d rather see CEA doing the sponsorship than an individual company – while I applaud Seagate for their initiative, as I was walking the floor with Dave Winer he made some very good points about the bias it creates (whether evil or not, it’s bias).
  • change the single “press” badge into three badges: Analyst, Online Media, Offline Media – the rationale being it tremendously helps the PR staff for a company to know who they are talking to.  some companies care more about the blogosphere than they do print media.  others don’t.  focus is good.
  • provide blogging “clusters” (or pods) on the show floor – once you have your Online Media badge, you can go to these pods which include power and network and allow you to rapidly get your fresh content online

Anyone out there have any other thoughts for blogging & CES 2008?

Video(s) from Pussycat Dolls party with Microsoft at CES2007

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IMG_2661 groupFor some reason it really seemed like this year’s CES has a lot more overlapping events than I remember from previous years, and my evening calendar often appeared more full than the day! Now Microsoft has a pretty decent track record for throwing CES parties, so I knew it was a must-visit (even though HP’s party was also at Pure the previous night, and even though the Best Buy party in 2006 featured the Pussycat Dolls).

pussycat dolls (11)At the beginning (well, I guess middle, but we didn’t get there right away) the Pussycat Dolls were on stage doing a whole dance routine. Now I wasn’t previously aware of this, but there are actually two different groups called the Pussycat Dolls – one is the group out of LA, the other are the dancers in Vegas. We had the Vegas crew, and while they weren’t the same ladies from the videos, they certainly weren’t a disappointment. And since I am a giving person, I recorded some video of the event (scroll down if you are losing patience with my prose). The funny moment for me was when a bouncer came up to me, asked if I was videoing, and I said “no, just taking pictures.” It was even funnier because there were at least two dozen phones and cameras all within sight, all recording as well!

I’ve said before that I’m a big fan of Muvee’s AutoProducer software, so as I was thinking about the best way to share the videos I took. I decided to make FIVE (5) different videos and upload them all. The cool part is – I only spent about 10 minutes generating all five videos, thanks to Muvee’s excellent software. And half of the time was just me picking out which themes to try! Now, on to the Muvees…

Version 1: Pro-Very Fast theme, no editing

Version 2: Pro-Very Fast theme, minor editing

Version 3: “Dance Floor” theme

notice the cool pulsing effects? all automatic!

Version 4: “Over the Top” theme

Version 5: basic Pro-Fast theme featuring U2’s “Beautiful Day”

just to show the difference between using different types of music with otherwise the same content

I’ve got a full Muvee review coming soon (and an interview at CES), but make sure you try watching at least a couple of different ones to see the power of the software. Again, I spent less than 10 minutes to create all 5 videos. Not too shabby.

ms vista party (5)Back to the topic at hand – the party. The DJ was DJ-AM, which wowed Dave, while had me say “him?” All I can say about his spinning was: best music ever. I’ve never seen a room react so positively to a DJ for so long (hours and hours) before. I don’t do as much clubbing as in my younger days (when I did almost no clubbing whatsoever), but this was a seriously impressive night. Click here for more party pix.

I might be incorrect, however, when I point out the irony of the DJ using a Mac to play the music at the Vista-related party…

Interview with Best Buy CTO @ CES 2007

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I first met Bob Anderson, the CTO of Best Buy, while working with Sling Media. While there it was quite apparent that he’s a pretty sharp guy when it comes to consumers and technology products. We spent about 45 minutes walking the CES show floor (Central Hall) and chatted about gadgets and the like. He agreed to do a 1-minute video with me, and here it is:

Thanks Bob, good to see you again!

Netflix Moves Beyond the Disk

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Netflix, the little DVD rental company that could, announced today that they’d offer a PC-based streaming version of their service (there’s already a video demo online).  It’s launching as a limited beta with a select number of users, with about 1000 titles available immediately.  As it spreads to its now 6-million-user strong customer base, the pricing is based on your monthly bill – for every dollar you spend, you get one hour’s worth of streaming.  More of the basics on PVR Wire, an unimpressed Davis Freeberg, Zatz Not Funny, and the Mercury News.  And don’t miss Dave Winer’s “nyah nyah” to Robert Scoble on the Scripting News. 🙂

There are quite a few important ramifications of this new “Watch Now” feature as I see it.

Hollywood and the Internet
In a nutshell, Hollywood has clearly stripped all public fears of distributing content over the ‘Net.  Sure there’s DRM and it’s not open-platform and people can complain all they want, but the bottom line is: they are trying, and in my opinion putting the right feet forward.  Combine this with last week’s CBS keynote, and you have some fairly daring moves.  This is increasingly important as Joost (my early winner for worst-named new company of 2007) and other attempts to go around the studios launch.  If Hollywood moves fast enough and smart enough they can effectively cripple any illegal offerings from reaching the masses (but go read Mathew Ingram’s more skeptical thoughts on this).

Redefining rental: will the stores survive?
Another aspect of the “traditional business model” that is clearly up for redefinition is the question of “what is a rental?”  In the dark ages (roughly… the 80s) there was almost no personal ownership of videos, and everybody went to their local rental shop to pick up a movie for a night, then paid late fees as it sat on the counter by the door.  Now look at the worlds of possibilities.  Cable companies’ on-demand services give you access to hundreds of movies (many free) instantly for 24 hours, and the satellite guys are pretty much there as well.  DVDs are priced so low that many people buy instead of renting (personally, I buy em used on Amazon, keep them for a while, then resell them).  Blockbuster lets you rent online, return in the store, with no late fees.  There’s no doubt that Blockbuster is here to stay, but the struggling mom+pop stores and smaller chains are about to face a whole new wave of competitive services and products.

Business model
Mike Arrington wrote that Netflix has $40MM budgeted for costs and overhead of the new service.  Since the movies are all being streamed in standard definition (which irks Mr. Scoble, but I think is irrelevant right now as PCs do such a phenomenal job of upscaling video anyway) the bandwidth costs shouldn’t be terribly excessive.  I’d love to see someone really analyze the metrics here, as my hunch is this: they are probably budgeting XX hours of streaming per month per customer, and that XX is a fairly low number when compared across the customer base.  For every user who watches their full 18 hours per month online, I’m sure there are at least 5-10 who watch 0 streaming.  So the important issue is how much of this can they really afford to do, especially if the service takes off?  Is this all about customer attraction or retention?

PC vs TV
From about 1999-2005 I used the phrase “TV is lean back, PC is lean forward” on average 3.4 times a day (I cannot verify that number, but I believe in it), as the company I worked for at the time was providing digital media streaming technologies to consumer electronics manufacturers.  Turns out I wasn’t completely right (gasp).  I plan to write a longer post on this topic, but it seems that many consumers are perfectly willing to lean back at the PC (we’ll see about the other part later this year).  With services like YouTube and products like the Slingbox, consumers are spending more and more time at their PC being entertained.  I’ve been advising my clients recently with one piece of new advice: “you cannot design any convergence product or service that does not anticipate a laptop being used in conjunction with your product.”  In other words, if you have a new interactive-TV play, assume there’s a laptop being used at the same time on the couch.  I wonder to what extent this will continue, but this is one more important piece of the puzzle.  But to get the Netflix Watch Now back to the TV?  Thomas Hawk mentions using the streaming features of the Xbox 360, and Kevin Tofel muses briefly on the SlingCatcher.

Parting Thoughts
While I was once a Netflix customer, I am not one now, and this most certainly isn’t enough to get me back.  I’ll also admit that while I am not anti-Netflix, I have not viewed them as some pariah in the DVD space.  Even with 6 million households, there’s over 60 million more out there they aren’t servicing.  That said, they’ve knocked Walmart’s attempts back to the stone age, and have pushed Blockbuster into exploring new models.  Today they enter a new game, with a compelling service, but new competition and new forces in play.  I’m curious to see what happens next.

Is that 12GB in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

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Seagate driveFor the past couple of years, Seagate’s portable 5GB drive was quite popular. But 5GB is so 2004. Now Seagate is introducing a whole new line of portable hard drives, ranging from pocket-sized to pocketbook-sized (official press release). The smallest unit will come in either 12GB or 16GB when it ships later this year, which is a perfect amount of storage to have accessible when you are on the move. Here’s a little video we shot at Seagate’s booth during CES 2007:

I think it’s interesting that they are referring to the drives as “data movers” (under the Freeagent brand). I’m not sure if that’s exactly the terminology I’d be using to market portable storage. I see the concept that you use the drive to “move data” from one PC to another, but with 12GB, that’s a lot of data to move. I think a 1GB or 2GB USB flash drive is more appropriate as a “data mover” (unless you are doing a lot of video editing). To me, 12GB is a good chunk of a personal media collection. It’s all your digital photos, or much of your music collection. Don’t get me wrong, I love the product, I just think the marketing may need a tweak.

This becomes even more true on the higher volume Freeagent drives (500+ GB!) which are clearly more for personal backup than anything else. And keep an eye on backup – I’m predicting it’ll be a big trend in 2007!

More Seagate CES coverage: Engadget, Tech Digest, and Electronista.

Sling Media shows Clip+Sling at CES2007 – CBS Keynote video

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IMG_2713 jason krikorian - cbs keynoteLong long ago (last year), in an office far, far away (San Mateo), Blake Krikorian (Sling Media CEO) had a vision wherein Slingbox owners could easily share clips from favorite TV shows with each other. We knew it was a good idea, but didn’t want to push to far forward due to industry relations, copyright issues, bandwidth issues, etc. Looks like they’ve come a long way in the few months since I left, and a lot of these issues got worked out, which is very exciting. They announced two major new things at CES 2007: SlingCatcher and Clip+Sling.

SlingCatcher coverage is fairly pervasive, and I’ll hold off on adding any commentary of my own until we get closer to product launch. Watch this video or read about it at Zatz Not Funny, Engadget, Crave UK, MobilitySite, or ShinyShiny.

For Clip+Sling I was able to attend Les Moonves’ keynote during CES, and recorded a video of the whole demonstration:

IMG_2758 chad hurley - cbs keynoteIt was great to watch Blake up there, especially as Chad Hurley had been on stage as well. YouTube is definitely great for user-generated content, like the videos we all make with our cameras these days. It’s a real pain for most users, however, when it comes to TV content. Most consumers have no idea how to record video to their PC, or even worse how to edit down to the clips they want. I think Clip+Sling with a centrally hosted server launched in conjunction with CBS and other networks could be extremely disruptive in the online video space. I’m looking forward to the launch later this year.

More Clip+Sling coverage: Engadget, Laptop magazine, PVRWire, SlingCommunity, and Zatz Not Funny.

Disclosure: I am a former Sling Media employee and have some stock. In fact, I just found a couple of videos of me doing Slingbox demos with the nice people at BuyTV (and the Slingbox Pro too)

Also, I video’d the CBS “media” presentation during the keynote.

Try CameraBright for low light photos – CES2007 video

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IMG_2708 camerabrightIf you’ve ever browsed my photos, you’ll notice tons of underexposed shots, or pictures where there just isn’t enough light to work with the digital camera. For cell phone users, this problem is even worse. While wandering the Sands Expo at CES 2007 I stumbled upon CameraBright. The company makes a few attachments for digital cameras that give you more light, especially for shooting video (would’ve been great when I was recording the Pussycat Dolls at the MSFT party – video coming online this week). At CES they were also showing one that works with your cell phone (called PhoneBright), and we got a little demo of it in action…

They gave me a unit to try out, so I’ll get a full report in shortly (read: in February).

More coverage at I4U (including their video too).

Since when did video gaming require weird furniture?

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One CES trend was obvious: digital picture frames. Saw em everywhere. Gonna be huge. More on another day.

IMG_2548 dave winer on pyramat gaming chairAnother trend was a little more complex: short video game chairs with built-in rumble packs, speakers, subwoofers, drink holders, rocking bases, and tush-warmers. Hm, wait, no, no. There weren’t tush-warmers. But I saw these goofy seats from a variety of companies across the show floor, and I have to say: I don’t get it. Relative to a couch, these bizarre chairs seem less comfortable and less convenient to game in. Am I just too old for this stuff?

More game chair coverage from CES: GameDailyXL, Kotaku, QJ.net, BornRich, TechZO, and DigitalStraightTalk.

QMotions wants to turn your Xbox/PS3 into a Wii

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One of the biggest trends in gaming over the past year or so is to add physicality to the gaming experience. Some companies, such as XaviX, aim to actually have fitness-oriented video games. Then there’s the immensely successful Wii, with a motion-enabled controller that’s winning the hearts (and breaking the arms) of kids across America. During CES 2007 (in the Sands Expo) we met up with Ana Soriano from Qmotions who showed their approach to adding the physical interaction to the other consoles. Here’s a little video of their technology in action:

IMG_2684 qmotions - ana srinoIMG_2681 qmotions - ron

More on QMotions: Forbes, Matt Sarrel’s blog, and IGN.

CBS keynote: A vision of Media @ CES2007

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I felt the CBS keynote at CES 2007 was one of the more interesting ones last week. It showed a company that is faced with the most daunting challenge: to transform itself in a time of massive change. TV networks and companies have so much competition on the horizon it must be frightening to be at the helm. Attacks come from every side. So to see Les Moonves (who I actually got the chance to meet and speak with at Sling Media’s booth during CES 2006) address the question of “what is media?” and have so many different, compelling answers was a pleasure. Although I could have done without the embarrasingly bad Second Life Star Trek montage. Talk about a selling point against user-generated content!

This video was shown just before Les took the stage.

More coverage of the keynote: Shiny Red Button, Core77, GigaOm (and subsite NewTeeVee), and WebProNews.