Co-authored with @bbhlabs, we identified 3 key trends at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show and what they mean for marketers:
Media Daily News featured the article, which can be found here.
Over the course of this week, a few Denuologists will be posting their impressions from CES. Here is the first with more to follow:
Last week was my first time at CES and now I understand why Apple doesn’t show up here. Don’t get me wrong: the inexorable onward march of technology is impressive. Incremental gains are being made every year in processing power, graphic quality, and size. But put it all together under a single convention center roof and much of it just feels desperate; companies urgently trying to get your attention to tout the fact that the 2 inch paper-thin display from last year is now down to 1.2 inches. The 3DTV displays go on for miles, showing you what every form of content looks like in 3D (Documentaries! Cooking shows!). Most of the booths seemed to have an implicit sign hanging over them reading “WE NEED YOUR MONEY”. It reminded me that for every breakthrough we embrace, whether it be CDs, HDTV, or MP3 players, there is a pile of innovations where the public collectively shrugged its shoulders (Laserdisc anyone?).
Snow on the ground, a new year around the corner, must be time for the Top 100. As always, this is not an exact science but that never stops me from painstakingly ranking each one. The list follows but first the same ol’ rules and caveats:
+ They are listed in reverse order because that is the only real way to do a list. Any of you with any sense of drama will listen to the whole thing from 100 slowly building up to number 1, at which point you will practically be bursting with excitement.
+ These are tracks, not necessarily singles. Covers qualify as well though I usually only include ones that are markedly different than the originals.
+ I only have one song per artist because the list is way cooler that way. Having 12 Arcade Fire tracks in the Top 100 feels pretty anticlimactic. Everybody gets a shot this way.
+ They were all released in 2010 on either an album or as a single. Sometimes the album came out last year but it was released as a single this year (or vice versa). That is a loophole I happily exploit.
+ If I’m wrong about the release date of something, blame Wikipedia and Rhapsody.
The list is below and every song title features a link to that song. It got much harder this year thanks to MySpace destroying iMeem and Apple ruining LaLa. Thank you corporate overlords. If you have Rhapsody, you can find 88 of the songs assembled as a playlist here. Know that the Rhapsody list is missing songs # 100, 91, 81, 73, 69, 65, 64, 48, 45, 42, 39, and 30 so you’ll have to revert to this post if you’re a completist (and bravo if you are). Either way, set aside just over six hours to make it through the list. And enjoy.
This time of year brings us warm holiday cheer, carols sung by choirs, and the droning moan of the undead as they wander the streets for fresh brains.
Wait, what?
In all seriousness, zombies are the monster-du-jour nowadays. The success of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” and films like “Zombieland” point to them becoming a cornerstone of pop culture and, of course, this includes the digital space. Online, one can learn how to defend themselves against the undead hordes, run simulated survival scenarios similar to the classic game, “Oregon Trail,” or dispel certain myths that have cropped up in recent years about zombie culture.
Don’t think of this as issue 73 of Reflecteur, think of it as your handy survival guide to online zombie infestation. Also, happy holidays.
Download it here!
My entertainment-time is no longer leisure-time. It’s a full time job. Movies on demand. Games on demand. Books on demand. Time-shifted TV. Digitally distributed games with demos, each and every one. Ratings on EVERYTHING. Ratings on ratings. It all conspires against me. It burdens me with media overload. Worse yet, media guilt.
