How to survive CES 2008 without getting off the couch
OK, first, for those unlucky few that are going to CES (Consumer Electronics Show, aka “big gadget fest of the year”) for some reason, here’s some good posts to help you prepare:
1. Paul Kedrosky tracked how much higher the hotel prices are.
2. There’s a few events for bloggers, too.
3. Michael Gartenberg says to bring good socks AND listen to Jeremy Toeman’s advice.
4. M3 Sweatt works at Microsoft and has lots of good advice.
My advice? Stay home and avoid the two-hour taxi lines.
Here’s how.
First, if you’re one of two people who don’t addictively visit Engadget and Gizmodo every 15 minutes you should start. Now.
They are already going nuts with CES pictures, vids, rumors, and more.
I heard that Engadget has more than 10 people walking the floor for you. Why? So you don’t have to!
In fact, last year I kept Engadget on my cell phone WHILE I was walking the show floor. Why? Those crazy people find all the cool stuff and then when you see it on Engadget you rush over to get your hands on the cool geeky toy.
But, don’t stop with Engadget and Gizmodo. There are a ton of other sites that are going to be at CES too.
Here’s some:
1. CrunchGear.
2. GearLive. (Uploaded hundreds of videos last year alone — all from the BlogHaus).
3. SlashGear.
4. PCMag.
5. CNET News.com.
6. Geek News Central.
7. G4TV.
I’m sure there are many others. You can use Google News to follow CES news, for instance. But, here’s your chance. If you’re going to CES and want people to know about your coverage, post a link here!
Other ways to survive CES without getting off the couch?
1. Drink lots of beer. It helps you get through all the stupid gadget PR posts.
2. Get multiple screens. That way you can watch all the interminable streaming video (yes, I’m going to be doing live video from around Las Vegas too) and you can see if anything gets interesting without reducing your productivity too much.
3. Make sure you don’t miss all the CES Keynotes. It’s Bill Gates last CES. They are usually on in the evenings. I’ll post the URLs of the keynotes when I learn them (if I can).
4. Follow Twitter. Use a Twitter search engine to follow CES. If that one doesn’t work, try this one.
5. Have credit card ready so you can be first to Amazon.com.
6. If you can’t afford to buy new toys tell all your friends you’re waiting until next week to see what Steve Jobs is bringing out at MacWorld.
Anyway, good luck, and let us know how gadget week is going.
For me it starts tomorrow with an interview with Doug Engelbart. Inventor of the mouse. Among other things. We’ll be streaming that live sometime after 2 p.m. Pacific Time and we’ll use that same URL to stream live video from the CES Media Center Express starting Saturday morning at about 10 a.m. (Pacific) and all week long will be updated with both live and recorded video (if we can get a cell or wifi connection we’ll stream live video from the show floor).
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January 2nd, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Hi Robert,
Planning some BlogTalkRadio shows from CES at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sheywood
Thanks for the links to the tips sites!
Susan :^)
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:32 pm
The rumors are just crazy already!
I will be following the timeline though….
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:39 pm
We are going to be hooking people up with TONS of show floor video, along with our regular news updates. Subscribe to our video feed ;)
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Good list Robert. Thanks. Mac World will probably NOT steal the show.
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 am
“For me it starts tomorrow with an interview with Doug Engelbart. Inventor of the mouse”
Hmmmm..running out of ideas?
http://www.kyte.tv/ch/6118-scobleizer-sponsored-by-seagate/63531-doug-englebar
http://scobleizer.com/2005/12/01/douglas-engelbarts-interview-online/
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:04 am
Sarah Meyers will be there **live** full-time with Popsnap:
http://www.popsnap.net
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:10 am
Robert: Doug Engelbart is the smartest person I’ve interviewed. I’ll never turn down a chance to sit down more with him.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:31 am
I’m going to CES for the first time this year, despite living in Veags for 5 years (I always stayed clear). I’ll be working the HP booth Monday and Tuesday. Anyone’s welcome to stop by and say hi. I’ll also be live blogging and twittering whenever I can get service.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:20 am
I have never been a regular visitor of Engadget but because of what you’ve commented on Engadget I am now curious to check this site every now and then.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 am
http://gizmodo.com/339805/ultra+pretty-dell-crystal-lcd-monitor-now-available
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/03/lg-philips-announces-14-3-inch-flexible-e-paper-display-for-ces/
here are two items debuting, that will surely be smashes
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:56 am
Team Ergo will be there to launch the new shiny toy (www.yourergo.com). Please say hello. :)
We’ll be blogging from the booth.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:08 am
I only just noticed that Engadget has a Twitter feed (Gizmodo’s has cobwebs on it) which should be a great way to keep up. I removed their RSS feed from my reader a while back as I couldn’t deal with the amount of content. For CES, their Twitter feed should be just the job :)
http://twitter.com/engadget
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:21 am
[...] follow me at http://twitter.com/stevecla and if you’re visiting the show, get some great tips from Scoble, Betsy and M3 Sweatt Filed under: Events, [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:58 am
Good advice. Here’s the thing about the socks: don’t just have good socks. Take more than you think you need. And change them during the day. If you have the space and can carry the weight, take extra shoes as well.
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:01 am
We will be covering the show again this year..
http://windowsconnected.com
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:33 am
Ars Technica will have 3-4 people on the floor. You can follow our regularly updated Twitter feed for that stuff plus the everything else:
http://twitter.com/arstechnica
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:50 am
GamingNexus will have four people walking the floor looking for cool video game and audio/visual stuff.
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:37 am
CES is fun, but before I’m done I will have walked 300 miles and spoken to a thousand people!
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:52 am
I built a yahoo pipe to follow all things tagged CES.
http://www.techlifeweb.com/2008/01/03/follow-ces-via-rss/
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I noticed that http://technorati.com/tag/ces+2008 has links to a few posts already.
And Jeff reports that Channel 10 will use both CES and “CES+2008″ tags for posts, such as http://www.on10.net/tags/CES/Default.aspx, starting Sunday.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:16 pm
[...] CES, and other survival tips courtesy Live Search. Also see the suggestions and links in Scoble’s “how to-survive CES without getting off the couch. [And added 010308...] I certainly agree that regular visits to Engadget and Gizmodo is a good [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 12:46 am
[...] Read the full article here: How to survive CES 2008 without getting off the couch [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 12:53 am
[...] Tags: Microsoft, Xbox 360, CES 2008, CES. [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 1:03 am
[...] This week I noticed he posted some information on CES I thought was pretty good. See http://scobleizer.com/2008/01/02/how-to-survive-ces-without-getting-off-the-couch/ for a quick read. We’re all going to get pounded with announcements in the the next week or [...]