I went to my first of two CES’s six years ago as a reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, covering the half dozen or so companies and handful of sales reps from Virginia that were attending. I’d spot the sales guys by scouring nametags as they’d pass by.

“Hey, you from Richmond?” I’d ask.

“Yeah.”

“Quote for the paper?”

“What the —- are you doing here?”

Your first CES is difficult to enjoy because it’s so overwhelming. Multiple halls, each the size of a standard city’s entire convention center, house thousands of exhibitors and play host to tens of thousands of industry people. Lots of the booths give out branded mini-moisturizers, tissues and lip balm to help combat the dry air. Single “booths” are the size of McMansions and filled with gadgets – some conceptual, others that will go on sale and be outdated in six months. I recall being told by a reporter who’d been before to plan ahead. Get booth numbers, map out a schedule, drink lots of water. I chose instead to wing it, and found myself doubling-back throughout the week and destroying the soles on a well-made pair of shoes. That first year I remember delaying booking a hotel room and had to stay at a Howard Johnson’s outside of the main Strip area. I imagined horrible, horrible things had happened at that room before my arrival. I recall being close to tears at one point attempting to submit my stories by the deadline, which, thanks to time zones, was three hours ahead in Richmond.

I did  a little better the second year – including booking a sweet room – but still not great.

As technology changes every few months, so too does how the show is covered in the media. While blogs were of course popular in 2006 and 2007, when I was there, the updates coming out of CES weren’t as constant (annoying?) as they are today thanks to the prevalence of social media. Print deadlines are less important because you’re writing for the web. The deadline is unending.

In my mind, though, almost more than anything, CES stands today as a time to remind people that Apple is not the only company in the world that makes gadgets, nor is it the only company in the world that makes good gadgets.* Apple doesn’t attend CES.

I recall being in the press room at CES in January 2007 when Apple announced the first iPhone. Slick timing on the company’s part: distract the industry. We were all huddled in that press room reading about the iPhone on blogs and watching news reports on TV as a world of ridiculous technology sat outside our door, waiting to be touched and looked at and reported upon. Yet the announcement instantly killed the vibe of CES and overshadowed everything for the remainder of the trade show. Reporters in the press room called their editors to determine how to handle CES coverage with the iPhone news. Which story led? The answer, that day, was iPhone. Hundred-inch televisions, the newest gaming consoles, the hottest stereo systems and the bikini-clad women showing them off were no match for a tiny three-in-one touchscreen device that would go on to disrupt entire industries.

But Apple doesn’t make TVs (yet), and not everyone uses Macs. People still pick up game controllers, and enjoy flip-style phones, and buy technology products from many other reputable and innovative brands. And all of it is on display at CES. Here are a few trends and products to that I’ve been watching come out of this year’s convention:

Ultrabooks. Super thin, fast, and not a lot of bells and whistles.

Skinny TVs. Slim, more natural colors, richer blacks, thin, thin, and definitely not thick.

Kinect on Windows. “I’m thrilled to announce that Kinect is coming to Windows on February 1,” Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said.

Health and Fitness. A host of upstart companies want to serve a helping of vegetables to those consumers in the form of health-and-fitness gadgets.

Oh, and that * symbol a few paragraphs up: for every one really awesome thing at CES, there are at least two completely lame things that will never, ever be bought or used by anyone. Though I probably still thought they were cool.

-Jeff (@jephkelley)

Active Tweeters
At the Web2.0 Summit Twitter CEO Dick Costolo shared statistics on active users. Twitter now has 100 million month active users, and of those 50% log in everyday. Twitter isn’t catching up to Facebook just yet. Facebook has more than 800 million active users, and of those 50% log in everyday.

iPhone 4$:
With a dual-core AA5 chip, new camera and optics, iCloud and Siri (Apple’s voice recognition app), the iPhone 4S is pretty impressive. Sales for the newest iPhone are pretty impressive as well. Let’s look back a bit: it took 74 days to sell the first million iPhone’s and it took three weeks to sell three million iPhone 4′s.

Drumroll, please.

It only took one weekend to sell 4 million iPhone 4S’, making a new iPhone sales record.

Now, for those of you who don’t have it yet, the question is “To upgrade or not to upgrade?”

Social & Mobile
Highlights from a recent ComScore Study:

Those using social networks from their mobile device grew 37% in the past year and more than half accessed social networks almost every day.

Facebook’s mobile audience is approaching 60 million users. In the past year, mobile posts grew by 50% on Facebook,  75% on Twitter and 69% on LinkedIn.

70% of mobile social networkers posted a status update from their phone and the majority of them read posts from brands from their device.

“Social Jobs”
Facebook and the Department of Labor are working together to connect job-seekers and employers through Facebook. Called Social Jobs,  “The partnership’s goal will be to facilitate employment for America’s jobless through the use of social networks.” Social Jobs aims to provide job postings and resources for job-seekers and recruiters. Like “Social Jobs Partnership” on Facebook to learn more: https://www.facebook.com/socialjobs. (With never-ending privacy issues, I wonder if people will be weary of “Social Jobs” as many don’t want potential employers seeing any part of their Facebook life.)

Are You LinkedIn with your Classmates?
While Facebook was adding features to help users find jobs, LinkedIn was busy adding a feature to help users expand their network. “LinkedIn Classmates” is a new feature that makes it easier to connect with alumni from your college/university. As LinkedIn described,  “In the years since college, your classmates have become experienced professionals, industry experts, potential clients and trusted colleagues – in short, people who can help you expand your horizons.” This new tool allows you to see where alumni work, what they do, and where they live. You can also see what you have in common now, making it easier to network and connect with them.

-Anna (@alucas9)

New #4sq Features
Foursquare has made two notable updates to their app this week:

Tips List
They have added a tips list feature, which allows people to categorize a group of places. So now, for example, you can create a tip list for your favorite local bars or coffee shops.

Event Check-Ins
Foursquare has also announced official event check-ins. Foursquare has partnered with ESPN, movietickets.com, and Songkick to populate it’s database with sporting, movie and concert events for you to check-into.

Higher Ed and Foursquare
In an article this week, InsideHigherEd discussed “A recent survey by the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth found that 98 percent of higher ed institutions are on Facebook, and 84 percent are on Twitter.” This is a contrast to the 20% of campuses that have adopted an institutional presence on Foursquare. Foursquare use among colleges is expected to rise as officials realize the opportunity to interact with students while they’re on campus. Just think of the engagement opportunities – such as turning a college tour into a virtual check-in game or making students aware of campus events as they’re happening.

Skype Wi-Fi
Skype has a new app for iPhone and iPad users called Skype Wi-Fi. Skype Wi-Fi allows users to connect to more than 1 million Wi-Fi Hotspots around the world. Normally you will be charged by the minute (starting at $.06 per minute), but this weekend only you can try the app for free for 60 minutes. Find out more.

Social Media Marketing Infographic

Mashable Infographic

-Anna (@alucas9)

Who Owns What? The Smartphone Market

According to a recent Nielsen study, Android currently owns 39% of the smartphone market. Apple trails Android OS by more than 10%, owning only 28% of the market. However, according to TechCrunch, Android’s have a rather high return rate. View the following chart to see a breakdown of the market.

Recruitment Plug-in: “Apply with LinkedIn”

For companies who are looking for a fresh recruitment tool, the latest LinkedIn Plug-in may be worth a try.  LinkedIn has created a simple “Apply with LinkedIn” button that companies can embed onto their website.  Then, with one click, Jobseekers can apply for the position with their LinkedIn profile.

Rumors has it…

There’s nothing like a good rumor to get the weekend kicked off. Well, that is at least true when the rumor involves the iPhone. There have been numerous “tipsters” sending out photos of the iPhone5 (rumored to debut in September) and the cheaper iPhone4S (also rumored to debut in September). According to these sources the iPhone5 will be thinner and the iPhone4S will be lighter (due to a plastic back). See the images below and read more about these rumors here.

Promoted Tweets to Followers

Twitter has officially debuted promoted tweets to followers. The new plan allows an advertisers Tweet to appear at the top of followers timelines. Current partners include Starbucks, Groupon, LivingSocial, JetBlue and Sephora. Twitter sugar coats this change by explaining, “We all come to Twitter to connect with the latest information on the topics and people we care about. So when we decide to follow a favorite brand, business or charitable organization, we expect to be among the first to get a special announcement, access to exclusive content or a great offer.”

Netflix On The Rise…. In Price

It appears unlimited streaming and DVD plans from Netflix will no longer be bundled. Netflix announced this week that the current pricing of $9.99 a mo. for unlimited streaming and 1 DVD at-a-time will no longer be available. Rather, users can purchase unlimited streaming for $7.99 a month or they can purchase the one-at-a-time unlimited DVD service for $7.99 a month. As you can see by the image below, many Netflix users took to Twitter to voice their displeasure with the change.

-Anna (@alucas9)

Surprise: 50% of iPad subscribers click “Allow”

50% of users who subscribe to online publications opt-in and allow Apple to share information with developers such as their name, email, and zip code. As CNN Money reports, “this discovery is “the surprising reason publishers are finally saying yes to Apple.””

Google Music Beta to stream 20,000 songs for free, official! (updated)

Google beta launched a cloud streaming service called “Music Beta by Google” that streams over 20,000 songs for free. The service allows you to create a playlist or select “Instant Mix” to have a playlist auto-created based off of one song. As Engadget described, “Google’s service will essentially mimic the music locker functionality of Amazon’s Cloud service, albeit without the ability to sell songs direct to consumers. Ouch. Unfortunately, Google’s plans to launch a more feature-complete service were derailed when discussions with the labels broke down.”

Facebook Finally Launches Improved Photo Tagging

Facebook has improved photo tagging. Users can now tag photos with the names of Pages and can tag people who aren’t on their friends list (as long as privacy settings allow for it).

EXPOSED: Facebook’s Plan To Plant Anti-Google Stories in the Press

Busted. Facebook has admitted to hiring PR firm Burson-Marsteller to raise concerns over Google’s privacy act (aka plant negative press). This plan backfired when blogger Chris Soghoian decided to publish emails from Burson asking him to write a negative piece on Google.

GrouponLive: An Online Ticketing Deals Marketplace From Groupon, Live Nation

GrouponLive is a new joint venture by Groupon and Live nation that is going to offer local online ticketing deals.

-Anna (@alucas9)

Tech Trends of CES

Vizio's Theater 3D Experience

Cheaper 3D

More Tablets

LePad Tablet and Hybrid

A plethora of tablets have been announced at CES, all trying to capitalize of the success of the iPad. The tablets getting the most attention include the Motorola’s XOOM tablet, which uses Google’s Android 3.0 operating system codenamed Honeycomb, can be upgraded to use Verizon’s 4G LTE network, and has a duel-core processor. Another notable tablet is the LePad Tablet and Hybrid. This Android tablet can actually secure into a keyboard base and become a notebook. These new tablets will likely hold our attention, that is, until the iPad 2 is announced.

Apple Launches Mac App Store, 1 M Apps Already Downloaded

Although not at CES, Apple is still making attention-grabbing announcements. On Thursday, Apple launched the Mac App Store, essentially the desktop version of the iTunes mobile app store. Apple already has around 1,000 apps available for your Desktop. iPhoto, Keynote, iMovie, and Garage Band are now available for individual purchase (rather than an expensive bundle), and there are tons of other useful apps you can purchase. Apple announced that over 1 Million desktop Apps were downloaded in the first 24 hours after release.

Keep Up with CES

According to Mashable, “CES is mentioned as many as 5,267 times on Twitter every hour and yesterday [Wednesday] was mentioned more than 110,000 times in tweets.” So as you can see, there is a lot of buzz around CES 2011. Here’s how you can keep up with the latest news about CES:

• Live Streaming
• Follow the #CES Hashtag on Twitter
• Official CES Channels: Facebook, Twitter, Social Circle
• Gadget blogs such as Gizmodo and Engadget

-Anna (@alucas9)

Ping:

Apple had a big event on Wednesday, where they introduced Ping, a social network for music lovers. Ping allows you to follow friends and artists, have custom music recommendations based on your followers, and share concert details. You can access Ping by downloading iTunes 10, going into the iTunes store, and activating Ping. Read our blog ‘Social Network, Meet iTunes‘ to find out more.

Twitter Usage Up:

Twitter usage went up 33% from May to August. In August, Twitter processed over 2.64 billion Tweets. Twitter now has over 145 million registered users, and activity has more than doubled this year.

Chrome 6:

For Chrome’s two-year anniversary, they are introducing Google Chrome Version Six. Mashable describes it as “The Modern Browser,” Chrome 6 does indeed boast a number of improvements, but as with previous updates, the focus remains on speed and simplicity.” Download it here: http://www.google.com/chrome

If You Can’t Beat ‘em, Join ‘em?:

Once the leading social network, MySpace is now syncing up with Facebook. This week, MySpace announced that users can now sync status updates with Facebook. You can also sync status updates with Twitter. Even with this new development, with the introduction of Ping, Myspace has to wonder whether their last niche, music, will be compromised.

Spot Trot:

I am including a local social media pick this week  – this one derives from Richmond, Virginia. There are plenty of social media apps and tools being developed in Richmond, one of which is Spot Trot.  Created by Joel Erb, Spot Trot has a big music twist to it. The app offers a customized mobile platform to artists, which they build for their fans. Clients include Dave Matthews Band and Tim McGraw. Partners include Live Nation and Apple. You can follow them on Twitter at @spottrot.

-Anna (@alucas9)

Steve Jobs described it as ‘Facebook and Twitter, meet iTunes’.

The capabilities of Ping include:

• Social music discovery: you can share music you’re listening to and see music your friends are listening to
• Follow and be followed: you can follow, and be followed by, friends and artists
• Share your thoughts and opinions
• Custom song and album charts: See top 10 lists customized by what your followers are listening to
• Over 17,000 concert listings: You can see upcoming concerts, and share concerts you are attending
• Easy integration with the iPhone/iPod Touch
  
• Available immediately

Our first thought? “Sorry, MySpace.  It was nice knowing you…”  Our second thought: Could anyone but Apple do this? Doubtful.  When you have over 160 million active accounts already using iTunes, it’s easy to see how this could catch on.  And before you cite Facebook’s half-billion users, consider that iTunes number doesn’t include the millions who download the software just as a music player/organizer/podcast feeder and never buy anything.

From the following screenshots, you can get a look at Ping, and see that it integrates seamlessly with the iPhone/iPod Touch.

The first screen shows an artist’s page, own-able by the performers themselves, which you can easily imagine would be a boon to the fan relations of all acts, big and especially small:

Next, the individual profile page, where you can share your musical taste with your friends and followers, even showing them what shows you’ll be going to.  This represents a tremendous opportunity, again for artists, but also for fan meetups and peer networking:

Finally, the ubiquitous “feed” page, where you see the most recent updates from the people you follow, what they’re listening to and what they’re buying:

Still think “how did we live without this?” is a bit hyperbolic?  Let us know your thoughts while we furiously refresh the iTunes download page.

- Thomas (@thomasmcdonald) & Anna (@alucas9)

Apple Addressed iPhone 4 Reception Issues:

Those who are lucky enough to have the iPhone 4 and unlucky enough to have reception problems along with it may soon have a solution…sort of.  Apple has admitted that the formula they use to calculate signal strength is “totally wrong.” Basically, this issue could cause a person to see 4 bars on their phone when they are actually in a poor service area. Apple is now going to follow AT&T’s recommended formula and will offer a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. This new software will be available for free for the new iPhone, as well as the iPhone 3Gs and 3G.

Hulu Plus:

The online television website Hulu is now offering a paid subscription for additional episodes.  The subscription will cost $9.99 a month, and will offer more episodes of shows to viewers. The tagline for this new service, called Hulu Plus, touts “More wherever. More whenever. Than ever.” Recent episodes from ABC, NBC, Fox & other network shows that were always free will still be of no charge to viewers.

New Facebook Stats:

Facebook has released some new interesting stats, the most astounding being that Facebook users spend 16 billion minutes on Facebook every day. A cumulative 16 billion minutes every day. Other stats include that 50% of active users log on to Facebook every day, about 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States, and more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices (and these users are twice as active.)

New Facebook Photo Feature:

Facebook is testing a new photo feature this week. This feature uses facial detection technology to make the photo tagging process easier and faster. Facebook also mentioned that there will be more photo features to come. View the official Facebook blog here: http://bit.ly/9j3kdh

Google’s News for You:

Google has revamped Google news by making it more customizable and sharable. This new feature, called News for You, tries to make the Google News homepage relevant to each user. You can go to the news homepage and edit personalization options to customize what subjects you want on your homepage – such as business, health, entertainment, or any subject you want to add. This new feature also makes it easier you to share stories on social networks.

-Anna (@alucas9)

Notes from the Home Front

When you think of Bonnaroo what pops into your head? Certainly not Brazil! Believe it or not, the Manchester festival seems to be quite popular in this South American country as demonstrated by the surprising number of tweets in Portuguese.

On Friday the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) posted an article entitled, “PR’s Role in Building Bonnaroo,” highlighting PR’s role in the evolution of the festival. In essence, the PRSA attempts to take credit for Bonnaroo’s success, and seems to discredit the festivals original crowd and perceived purpose.  We found it comical that the article was tweeted almost a week after its posting, used poor grammar, and came out when Bonnaroo attendance was low in comparison with recent years.

Saturday afternoon’s World Cup match between the United States and England was expected to be a popular topic among festival tweeters. However, surprisingly few tweets circulated around the world’s most popular sporting event over the weekend.  Much to our dismay, Bonnaroo was a little late starting the game’s live video stream, causing ‘Roo-goers to miss the opening ceremony.

The most common themes of the weekend centered around the heat and the bands.  Extreme temperatures caused tweeters to vocalize their discontent, but who could blame them? On Friday, Nashville was reported to have a heat index of 100!   ‘Roo goers, likewise, expressed their satisfaction/dissatisfaction with band performances on Twitter.  Reviews posted by Spin! and Rolling Stone magazines were frequently linked; however, it is indescernable if this was by those at ‘Roo or those at home living vicariously through the opinion of others. Our hearts were captured by The New York Times’ “4 Word Review” – short, sweet, and simple.

Another favorite of ‘Roo fans was Aziz Ansari’s photo with Beyonce and JayZ (http://bit.ly/d5005G) is staggering with 100 retweets.

Notes from the Field

In a previous post (Feedback’s Off To Bonnaroo 2010), we mentioned some of the apps the Feedback team was would be testing in the field.  Well test they did! Here are some of their findings.

The biggest issue at the festival, by unanimous vote, was cell and wi-fi service. According to Dean (@dbrowell), Bonnaroo’s problem is that it has an end customer that is savvier than they are.  They need the technology to accommodate them.  In spite of this, though, our field agents were able to get a pretty good idea of how some of these apps worked.

The team agreed that the official Bonnaroo app, while an improvement from last year, still has a few kinks to work out.  The schedule feature worked well, but Road Trip was virtually useless.  Bonnaroo radio’s purchase feature, while a good idea, was ineffective.  This function could greatly benefit bands, provided Bonnaroo and Apple can get it operating next year.

In the eyes of soccer fan Jeff (@ideaman), the FIFA app worked very well.  A banner for MobiTV ran across the top, and for $9.00 he was able to sign up for the service and watch live matches streamed to his iPhone.

Hot Potato, while a cool app, did not achieve the level of adoption we had hoped for.  It seems we were a bit ahead of the curve on that one though, because today an updated and much more efficient version of the app is available. Another new app, FriendMapper, was interesting, but likewise had glitches.  Friends have to be logged in for it to work properly because it doesn’t automatically find and geotag you.  The team believes that partnering with events or vendors would likely help remedy this issue and make the app more user friendly.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for observations from the field.  Feedbackers at Bonnaroo have seen some things no man should see.  Stay tuned for future updates and detailed reports on the utilization and success of social media at Bonnaroo.

Before we part, we at Feedback would like to send our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Matt Sloan.  His untimely death was a shock and tragedy.  May his memory rock on.

— Feedback Intern Brittney Trimmer (@bntrim). Video montage edited by Feedback Intern Brad Carr (@bcarr).