Digeo

This afternoon, I stopped by my previous employer's (DIGEO)booth here at CES. They are announcing the introduction of two retail offerings later on in the year (the press release can be found here).

Up until now, Digeo has been concentrating on producing an interactive TV/DVR platform for the cable market. They have been working hand in hand with both Motorola and Scientific Atlanta, the two big hardware players in US cable boxes, and have a good number of deployments of their MOXI software out in the market.

There are significant upsides and downsides of tying your product to the cable market. The biggest drawback is the glacial speed at which Cable MSOs move. A cutting edge product when brought to the attention of cable companies becomes less and less innovative as they certify and test market it. Although you get into what is essentially a walled consumer base when in bed with the cable companies, you are heavily handcuffed by their deployment process and schedule. Note that this problem is also present in contracts with the satellite providers and the results can be seen through the contentious relationship between TiVo and DirecTV.

When TiVo introduced the series 3 HDTV box with cablecard, they made a significant move out in relation to cable tv. With the first widely available cablecard DVR running TiVo software, they showed that cutting edge technology can work hand in hand with a cable TV infrastructure.

Granted, the cablecard 1.0 spec is only one way, forcing end users who want to use the cable-provided PPV and VOD services to continue to use their cable company's box for those services, but it is a step in the right direction. If Digeo can sucessfully enter this market, they will show that there are enough customers that want cable company agnostic services. Hopefully this will push the MSOs to provide support for cablecard 2.0 so they can provide their VOD services on 3rd party hardware.

Unfortunately, this could also produce the oposite effect, making the Cable MSO's even more protective of their market. They could use the content providers' reluctance with digital distribution to their own ends and attempt to lock out the 3rd party hardware.

Although the booth is pretty small (by CES standards) they scored some high profile ad space with a hugh banner outside the central hall. Hopefully this will drive more people out to the Digeo booth (South Hall 26610).

If you do stop by, say Hi to Henry and Cara and Jon. I have only good memories of working with them back in the early 2000's (what a strange thing to say...).

The BlogHaus

Sitting up at the BlogHaus at the Bellagio. A nice suite sponsored by Seagate and PodTech. Robert Scoble is acting as bartender. Followed Ed Bott through the security checkpoint and up the elevator.

A lot of people seem to know each other here. The meet and greet quotient is very high.

The keynote is in a little over an hour at the Venetian but this locale is comfortable enough that I don't feel compelled to leave right now.

Landing at Las Vegas

You are greeted by the sound of slot machines as soon as you exit the plane at McCarren international Airport and you know you are in Vegas. The city wastes no time reminding you what this place is all about and the friendly chimes and flashing lights entice you to lay down your money before you've taken 30 steps.

There's no doubt the crowd on my plane, by and large, will pass by these slots without pause. The flight is almost exclusively here for CES (I would net even the guy with the greased millet one aisle up, looking like he could be at home on the world poker tour, is coming for the convention, is technology people aren't known for our outstanding grooming) and gambling is not our primary focus.

Aside from a lack of poker passion (some of us do take a few hours out of the day to play the tables--you'll find me playing craps and blackjack--but we are the minority), CES attendees are also known for lousy tipping. Perhaps it's a lack of experience or a reluctance to spend money. I don't really know. What I do know is I tend to overcompensate for my fellow conventioneers by overtipping. In a gesture of good will toward the denziens of this city, I will cover propper tipping practices later in the trip. In the mean time, please tip your taxi driver, your taxi line guy at the hotels, your dealer, your hotel maid staff, your restaurant servers, your bartenders, anyone who provides you service and makes your stay more pleasurable. Ok? Thanks.

Ready to go.

Friday evening at the office and I am making the last minute preparations for a few days away from the office. Better remember my CES badge and related garbage.

Flight and hotel are booked. Plans have been made. Dinners reserved. Now all I need is a friendly blogger with an extra pass to the HP party Sunday night.

See you in Vegas.

Watch This Space

For this blog's launch event, I will be covering CES 2007 from Las Vegas starting Sunday January 7. There will be live reports from the show floor as well as day-ending recaps (as available).

Enjoy.