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Silicon Valley Watcher--reporting on the business and culture of innovation

Former Financial Times journalist Tom Foremski and team reporting on the business of technology and media . Silicon Valley is becoming a Tech Media Valley.

CES Diary Day 1Today

I was hoping to escape the echo chamber of the Bay Area by going to CES in Las Vegas. I've only been partially successful so far.

I flew in Wednesday morning and booked into Planet Hollywood. After a nap and some blog posts it was already evening. I set off onto the strip heading for The Venetian to catch a "blogger" party sponsored by Lenovo. It was mostlyt full of the same people I see all the time but also some of my favorite people such as Paul Mooney, that I only see once a year.

Paul Mooney is OG or rather OB, an original blooger, he's the real thing  - no fancy rooms or flights paid for by sponsors. He used his frequent flier miles to make it to CES and is couch surfing while he's here. (Photo of Paul Mooney and John Furrier.)

Also at the party were the social climbers of the blogosphere, Julia Allison, Megan Asha, and pals. It was nice to chat with them but it also seemed a little sad that they would travel all this way from New York city to socialize with CES g

GOOG Rejects Direct Investment In Failing Newspaper IndustryYesterday

Fortune magazine columnist Adam Lashinsky has a very interesting interview with GOOG CEO Eric Schmidt.

Google's business is very clearly making it very difficult for the newspaper industry to transition to an online business model because GOOG can sell advertising very cheaply, it doesn't have to employ legions of editors, journalists, photographers, etc, it uses servers and algorithms to publish content.

GOOG a new media company competing with old media in an online environment where it has by far the most efficient economic model. This is an issue I've been following very closely the past four years - the old media can't transition to the new media economy - "you can't get there from here."

The Fortune interview is set in the context of the dire straits for the newspaper industry:

Eric Schmidt wishes Google could save newspapers - Jan. 7, 2009

...the Christian Science Monitor eliminates its print edition, Tribune Co. declares bankruptcy, Detroit's two dailies slash home delivery to three days a week...

Mr Schmidt says there isn't much that Google can do to help the newspaper industry. He is asked if Google would purchase newspapers (it has enough cash to buy nearly all the publicly traded newspaper companies.)

Mr Schmidt replies:

The good news is we could purchase them. We have t

CES Looking Like Old COMDEXYesterday

I used to come to Las Vegas every year for the giant COMDEX (Computer Dealers EXPO) trade show for the PC industry. The first COMDEX was in 1979 but the last was 2003, a victim of the dotcom dotbom and it's own success which produced a large, unfocused show.

The Consumer Electronics Show has replaced COMDEX as the largest Las Vegas trade show but it is increasingly looking like COMDEX of old, especially if you take a look at the main keynoters. Wednesday evening Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft will kick-off the show and Craig Barrett, chairman of Intel, and John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, will give keynotes later in the week.

It makes it seems as if the tech industry is trying to takeover CES, which might not be a good sign for the future of CES since the tech companies can be very fickle.

In past COMDEX shows some of the leading companies such as Dell and others, would send their executives to make keynotes but wouldn't pay for booths, choosing private suites instead.

I'll be posting from CES this week...

. . .

Please see: NEOWIN.NET Tom Warren - Will CES die like COMDEX?

CES 2009: A Plethora Of Products Despite EconomyJanuary 6

I'm heading off to the massive Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Wednesday morning for a few days. Last year was my first experience with the show and this year promises to be much of the same: thousands of new products.

With the design and production cycle spanning good and bad times, there should be plenty of new products even though the number of attendees will be down, which is reflected in cheap room prices this year.

I'm less interested in the products than I am in the business stories and the general mood of the show. I'll be posting video and some short posts throughout the week.

Here are some articles on what we expect from CES this year:

SEATTLE TIMES: Steve Ballmer's rock-star moment as CES keynote

PCWORLD: HDTV and Mobile Gear to Steal CES 2009 Spotlight

PC MAG: Five Trends to Bet On at CES

REUTERS: In tough times, Vegas CES gets smaller

CNET: The HP Pavilion Dv2 debuts AMD's new U

2009: The Year Of The Great RepressionDecember 31 2008

Here is one of the best scenarios I've seen for what to expect in 2009. This essay, for the ATCA Open, is written by journalist and author Niall Ferguson who is also a contributor to the Financial Times.

I was especially struck by this passage:

Obama had set out to construct an administration in which his rivals and allies were equally represented. But his rivals were a good deal more experienced than his allies. The result was an administration that talked like Barack Obama but thought like Bill Clinton. The Clinton-era veterans, not least Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had vivid memories of the bond-market volatility that had plagued them in 1993 (prompting campaign manager James Carville to say that, if there was such a thing as reincarnation, he wanted to come back as the bond market). Terrified at the swelling size of the deficit, they urged Obama to defer any expenditure that was not specifically targeted on ending the financial crisis.