You raise so many issues and I don’t wish to bore anyone so I will only address a couple – but first some background:

I joined this trade association because of CES and because the volunteers who run the place agree that CES is run for the industry, especially for the smallest company with a good idea seeking to get marketplace exposure. At my first Board meeting when I was a consultant to the association, the chairman was then head of Panasonic, the largest exhibitor at the time. The Board was debating an increase in the prices charged exhibitors. He said that for Panasonic, it was a rounding error and would be insignificant, but we maust always maintain the event so that anyone with an idea in a garage can expose it to press, retailers and others for a small investment. We still run the show on that principle.

So a few years ago, I was thrilled when Kathy Gornik of Thiel became our chairman. She inspired us with her story how she packed lunches for five days and drove to her first CES with a prototype product. She got orders and created a company and she volunteers with us so she can give back and keep the CES open to newcomers.

So, the simple fact is that we focus on the smallest companies in how we run CES.

We also try to invest in our customer’s experience, from the carpets, to the signs, to the buses to the directories. We try cool things like myces which offers any attendee the ability to plan out and map their visits and do keyword searches before the show.

As to new product introductions, I believe we are in this age of digital transformation with a huge number of solutions being introduced that are combined great screens, navigation, choice, wireless, biometrics, sensing, robotics, portability, interent access, wireless, etc. I can go on – but try telling your parents nothing is new. The change is logarithmic!!

And the news- we bought the content leaders together. Five phenomenal keynotes. I will never forget Disney’s Iger talking about their strategy or CBS’ Moonves introducing Slingboxes new product which allows email of video clips. Breathtaking!! Plus amazing industry insiders (all them free).

The CES is big and companies shoose how they use space. We introduce Innovations ahead of time to help guide reporters and attendees who have clamored for us to do this.

We want the show to be the best in the world, where the leaders of tech converge and meet with their communities including content.

This is not a show – it is an event, and we hope to keep improving it and want others to feel the same sense of excitement and ownership and participation that we do. So please plan ahead, and be open to our future events!!

Gary Shapiro
President and CEO
Consumer Electronics Associaiton

http://www.ce.org.

As for new products in things like mobile phone or bluetooth, it didn’t seem like anyone announced any new product.

Jabra’s booth was the same JX-10 from a year ago, sony ericcson, nokia etc, didn’t show anytyhing new or exciting for bluetooth or cell phones.

The TV’s were cool, 1080p was nice, but it just seemed this year nothing on the floor was a wow i have to have it now.

Maybe you’re right, with blogs like this it seems like this is the way to find out what’s new or cool, and CES is just a big reason to go and meet people face to face. Which is what I ended up doing 3 days and walking the floor for only a few hours.

The fact is that these kind of shows _heavily_ favor the enormous companies, so the small guys doing something cool and new get squeezed out. The big companies get the prime spots on the tradeshow floor, and advertising on site is astronomically expensive. It costs HUGE money to exhibit at show like CES and it’s simply not worth it for small companies to try and compete — the economics just don’t make sense.

To put this in perspective, a modest “small” 20′x20′ booth plus personnel and limited on-site advertising at NAB would easily cost $100-120k. And that’s for four days! You have to sell a _lot_ of stuff to pay for that.

By way of example, I’d bet foneGear cannot directly cover the costs of the show with sales directly attributed to the show. They, like many other companies, write off the costs as “good exposure”.

But with the advent of blogs like this one, I think the benefit of paying big money just for “exposure” is really questionable.

Not to mention that tradeshows this size just aren’t fun. Travel, food, taxis and everything else is a nightmare with shows this size, even in a town like Vegas that’s built to handle it.

Big shows are a relic of big media thinking and I just don’t think they make sense any more…

I see where you’re coming from, but as a manufacturer I’d like to share a different perspective. I work for foneGEAR (http://www.fonegear.com), and CES is probably our biggest single event of the year. We held back new items for CES, announced a ton of new product offerings and had our best show ever. As a journalist walking the floor it is impossible for you to get to everything, but we contact hundreds of registered journalists in advance of the show describing our new items, and we try to make it easy to get pictures and description via our online media kit through the show’s press office.

At CES, foneGEAR launched two new brands (foneGIRL and foneSTAR cellular phone cases), two new Bluetooth products (a headset and a car kit) and the world premiere of foneScentz scented faceplates for Motorola RAZR phones, a foneGEAR-exclusive product made from a wood-based natural polymer. If that’s not innovative, I don’t know what is, but the tough part for all brands is obviously rising above the noise level of the show. We have an island in the center of the South Hall, and I’m sure that there were still people who missed us.

I’m sorry that we were not able to meet at the show, but we’d be happy to walk you and your readers through foneGEAR’s 2007 line when you have a moment.

I would also add to your list of reasons why… complicated technology and patents… it takes a long time to get a patent approved and the technology is getting more and more complicated as well, before you could tinker in your bedroom to build a radio etc… don’t even bother trying this now with nano scale ;-)

What you are describing is why I stopped attending trade shows, I saw year after year, the same stuff – nothing revolutionary, nothing I couldn’t usually buy down the street and to be honest, nothing that impressed me. This is a plague hitting most of the trade shows I have seen, from health to dental and everything in between. Trade shows use to be for the people in the industry, few of the general public would attend but now, more general public attend these events then industry pros… hence the change in focus.

Jon