• 25% – Things that will never come to market – These are ideas that are either just totally impractical for technical or commercial reasons, or just products that are so poor the company comes to their senses early. I don’t mind when products are impractical to bring to market, at least at the current time. CES is a gadget geek’s auto show. Concept cars are awesome. So are concept gadgets. I like love seeing prototypes. Things that just are so poorly received they never materialize… well obviously boring.
• 50% – Mundane – “OOh, you made a TV 0.5 mm thinner. Clearly the CEO of this company is the next Steve Jobs. A visionary that will change the world. Lets all throw out our TV’s and buy this.” I always wonder what Steve Jobs thought when he read about what was announced and demoed at CES. Lots of what gets fanfare is of the level that Apple releases silently releases with nothing more than taking the Apple Store down for maintenance and a small press release. It’s not just TV’s, phones do the same thing. Being a smartphone in 2012 is just status quo.
• 10% – Things I’d like to try – I’d be unlikely to justify the purchase, but I wouldn’t mind playing with things in this elite category. They include the MakerBot Replicator, I’mwatch, Fujifilm X-Pro 1, Netgear Range Extender. I’d never be able to justify a MakerBot, but I’d like to play with one. I suspect I may hate the I’mwatch, but it seems like it would at least be fun to try. Teathering is a major turnoff however. The X-Pro 1 seems quite expensive for what it is, but I love this high end non-SLR level we’re seeing now. I don’t have a real (read: $90) need for it, but Netgear’s range extender sounds like a good product for those areas where WiFi signals are a little degraded.
• 14% – Me too’s – This year’s “me too” category is the ultra portable laptop. The MacBook Air clones. Unfashionably late, and offering little imagination. Next.
• 1% – Could eventually change the world – I love this elite category. Ion Proton Sequencer is one of these. This particular model may go nowhere, but it’s a great example of where this stuff is headed. It will eventually change and save lives. Read up on it if you haven’t. Amazing. The other device is the Raspberry Pi (they have no booth). I’ve been following it since they announced it. I’ll order a few as soon as I’m able. Being able to make a full computer that small and affordable will change the world. For $25, I can put a computer I can write real software for in a situation where it may not survive or was previously not practical. It’s a giant step forward for computers everywhere. One way or another this will change things. This could change Linux usage.

So that’s my breakdown and what interests me personally so far. I’d be curious what others think of CES announcements this year.

An ad agency put down “indented plates” on benches so when “people” (I assume “women” is the intended word) sit down, the plate leaves an advertisement impression on the back of their legs.

Clever, a little creepy, but most of all, I can’t imagine this working nearly as well as the picture shows. First of all people move, so I doubt the impression is that clear. I also doubt that they are anywhere as centered as the picture shows. It’s a bench, not a seat so people aren’t necessarily centered over the plate correctly. Nor are all legs the same width. I also suspect most people who sit on it look anything like the picture. Also, some wear pants.

[Hat Tip: Consumerist]

As a side note, a lot of my old blog posts are becoming a reality these days. I find that to be rewarding.

Having seen them on the side of the road, I’ve always wondered if that was actually an effective business, but never to the level of doing the work to find out. I assumed it was no different than that “Make $5,000 from home” signs you see.

I presume everyone remembers the whole debate about Apple misusing Software Update to push Safari to iTunes users. For those who don’t, I’d suggest reading John Lilly’s blog post on the topic. Several prominent Mozilla bloggers spoke out about that practice.

It did help their market share according to Net Apps, though we’re talking 0.07 for Safari 3.0 vs. 0.21% for Safari 3.1. Not major, but still noteworthy that it did get installs.

To put this into a little more perspective, Apple has over 35 million iTunes installations (thanks mostly to the iPod). How many of which use software updater, I can’t find any way to accurately guess.

As of the latest release, Apple now separated software updates from installs in their updater, but still keeps it checked by default. It makes me wonder how many people realize it, and how many just find the strange icon on their computer. This could backfire in the long run and become thought of as crapware when it’s not in fact a “free trial” but legitimate fully usable complete software.

I suspect this will be a topic of discussion for several months to come in the software world.

Thanks to Big Spring School District for this one.

Image mirrored from Upload Geek.

Update: See follow up. It’s a hoax.

Look over to the right side and you’ll see this:

Here’s a larger complete screenshot for anyone interested.

Interesting eh? They aren’t threatened though. Here’s another tidbit. A search for “Safari” brings up a Microsoft ad as well. A search for “Opera” or “Opera Browser” does not. A search for “Browser” will. A search for “linux” will bring up a few Microsoft ads as well as a Firefox ad.

Most corporate blogging is pretty poor. For the most part it’s slightly reworded press releases put on a blog-styled webpage. A few companies on the other hand break this model such as Lenovo, Sunbelt Software, Sun, and Google’s various blogs (though the official Google blog is rather lame, the product blogs are pretty good as are some prominent Google employees such as Matt Cutts). Even Microsoft has blogs. Apple so far has not been blogging with the exception of WebKit. There are others, but these are my favorite of the tech sites.

Then you have some who have used blogging for grassroots marketing, most notably the Firefox marketing effort. There is also blogging among the people behind it that give anyone interested a good detailed look at what’s coming. In my personal opinion that has been extremely successful in a marketing sense, and as a form of sharing information.

Some companies apparently try to get into blogging through a concept called Pay Per Post. Pretty much as it’s name implies bloggers are paid to link and discuss products/services. In my opinion it’s a rather dishonest technique to boost page rank and convince people that bloggers like their product/service. Of course search engines are effectively helpless in this technique since it would be somewhat hard to tell the difference since they are disguised to look legitimate and done in coordination with the site owner, rather than the linkbombing comment spam does. Search engines don’t seem to mind, though note if the links aren’t relevant it may be the exception to the rule. Though that all could (and likely would) change if it starts to degrade the quality of search indexes. It wouldn’t be the first time a problem was initially underestimated (think spam).

Then there is the ethical side of things. Do they all require you disclose that you were paid for the post? Until now, they haven’t had to, though that’s changing. The FTC obviously has an opinion on what they think of marketing without disclosure. Toni Schneider doesn’t think it will catch on, and he’s one of the guys behind WordPress.com. I hope he’s right.

The ever insightful Matt Mullenweg (also behind WordPress.com) notes that blog posts matter and marketing needs to adjust to the new online world. The question I pose is how? So far the only answer I see is the model Lenovo, Sun, Google use that involves good open honest community building and information. People seem to appreciate the inside look they provide. I know I do. I read several of them on a routine basis. But will they all go this route?

It’s important to note it’s not just blogs that are drifting into commercialization with everyone wondering just how to go about it. Digg is another example with a Pay Per Digg scheme threatening it. YouTube also got fooled by pro’s pretending to be someone they aren’t.

I do believe that 2007 will prove to be an important year for blogging in general. This is one of the ongoing struggles that will likely be realized in the upcoming months. How will this effect credibility of those who choose blogging as a medium to communicate? Dunno. Looking at the success of organizations that do use the medium, I’m pretty sure it will be worth keeping around for the foreseeable future. It will be interesting to see how things play out. One thing is for certain: these are very interesting times on the net.