Category Archives for Technology
Haven’t blogged in a long while, but after attending Northern Voice, I got the expected kick in the pants from many of the attendees there. The enthusiasm is infectious, but more than that, it’s just a great reminder that blogging demonstrates first-hand the power of the web. So, no excuses for my lapse, but this is just what adults who care about the web do: we blog.
So I had the pleasure of sitting in on a discussion on web literacy that took place during the unconferenc-y first afternoon of #nv12. (Here’s a good breakdown from Boris who had the idea for the conversation.) It’s interesting for me to come to a discussion like this one with my background in libraries and in health, because I think though my personal level of “literacy” on the web as we talked about it is high, my perception of an average web users’ skill set is different. Maybe it’s pessimistic, maybe not. But, my sense is this:
To me, web literacy should be about establishing an understanding of how the web works practically. I’m not saying we shouldn’t value understanding how the web works technically, but I am saying most people aren’t interested in that right away when they sign up. What they’re interested in is getting some pictures on Facebook and Instagram. They want to reblog someone’s Tumblr post, they want to grab that infographic and Pin it. Before we can talk about HTML, before we can talk about DNS and hosting, we need to acknowledge that, like it or not, much of the creation and consumption happening on the web right now is mediated by large platforms like these.
So I don’t entirely agree with Boris when he says “I don’t think posting photos to Facebook or using an app to post to Twitter qualifies as putting your own content online.” To me there is nothing fundamentally different between a Facebook status and a blog post. Value judegments aside, at the core, those acts are all the creation of a cultural artifact on a web platform.
My perspective in health comes in here, because there’s a correlary between my perspective on web literacy I’ve just outlined, and how I think about health care on the web now, too. People are looking for information and to connect with others by any means necessary — if they do it on Facebook, or Patients Like Me, or on another health-oriented web community doesn’t really matter (to them). What matters is the connections they can make and their newfound ability to share.
So I believe it’s important that we start helping people to understand what it means to share their information on platforms where they don’t own the content, so that they can make informed decisions about what they choose to share there. I don’t believe people will stop using Facebook or things like it. I do, however, want people to feel empowered to participate on those platforms with an understanding of how much control over their contributions they can reasonably expect; to continue sharing with an explicit acknowledgement that they are freely giving up some ownership of their content in order to gain access to the advantages of the network.
If, after that, they end up (like we hope they do) making the decision to own their content then all the better, and let’s help with that. But in my view, we’ve got a very consumption-heavy web right now, and we have to tackle the implications of making your web content OPP first, and help transition people into owning their content second.
The other day my uncle and I were emailing about a recent family trip, and posting pictures online. Perhaps not knowing exactly what he was getting himself into, he asked me: “How concerned are you about matters of privacy regarding Facebook, Picasa, Twitter and others? Your dad told me not long ago that he had stopped using Facebook because of that concern. For example, are you concerned, as I am, that my photos on Picasa will remain in the hands of Google even if your aunt closes her account? Am I being too sensitive about this?”
Since I feel this was somewhat apropos to the release of Google+, I thought I would share how I responded to him.
So, I somewhat accidentally wrote you two answers since you asked what was perhaps an unexpectedly interesting question. The first one is short. The second one might require a beverage and a place to put up your feet, but hey, it’s practically the weekend!
Short answer: yeah, you’re probably being too sensitive, but that’s OK. Share whatever you feel comfortable with. If Facebook creeps you out, don’t join. We can always email. But if you’re looking for an easy way to share family photos, you can’t beat Picasa albums — and you can always delete them later if you want.
Long answer: My feeling is well you’ll always have a copy of the photos you post — or you should — so if Facebook or Google goes out of business or crashes or whatever, you’ve got a backup. That’s just common sense and I imagine as a photographer you have quite a bit of hard drive space laying around so it’s not your concern.
Secondly, you are allowed to delete stuff , so if for whatever reason you want to delete your Google account you can. Just take down your photos before deleting your account. Facebook is worse about this, so for photos I’m a little more wary there. Google or Flickr don’t concern me as much. They are more explicit about not taking ownership of your content. Facebook actually states they CAN use your content without asking, so that’s where the concern lies. They are also quite sinister about allowing you to leave (they “helpfully” lock your profile in carbonite Han Solo style — if you ever rejoin, BAM it’s back up like you never left).
I’d imagine a site like 500px, that is tailored to photographers, would be respectful of your content. Often times you can poke around the site for more info about ownership and copyright stuff and it will be clear. Smaller companies usually try to set themselves apart by explicitly saying they’re better than evil corps like Facebook and Google.
Finally, for me, it is inevitable that my life content will be shared on the web because not only will it be more and more impractical for stuff to be on my local drive for various technological reasons (why keep stuff in one spot, when you can access from anywhere!), but also because I am just coming up in the world when that’s what’s being done. I see value in sharing stuff with family and friends and even strangers that outweighs the risks inherent in putting things out there. This is maybe because as a young person I have a desire to meet new friends and have networking to do — but it is also somewhat philosophical, in the sense that I feel there’s more to be gained (socially, mentally, maybe even spiritually) from being open than constantly stopping myself from taking advantage of this incredible opportunity just because something could “go wrong” (whatever that means).
I think you have to start to see that value before it makes sense to pile your life’s work into a piece of software that may not survive a year from now. 500px is a good example because it’s new and its future is far from certain. Some people might be devastated by that. Me, I would shrug and start over somewhere new because the sharing is what’s important, not the tool. There’s a real possibility you would be pleased and surprised with the amount of feedback and exposure you could get in a place like that, but you have to want it.
If you read this far, pour another drink, you deserve it.
Love, Dan
Google+ seems to pride itself on making it easy to decide what group of people you want to share things with. Circles are much easier to handle that Facebook lists, and they baked the choice of what Circles you want to share certain content with into every time you hit “share.”
In a Tumblr-esque move, they also have an option to re-share things that others have posted. Via someone else, I shared a message on my profile that said “Welcome to Google+, Mark Zuckerberg” (he, or an imposter, had quietly opened an account shortly before). I thought that was a little funny, and didn’t have much else to do, so I clicked “share” and it zapped over to be shared to my circles.
Now, I didn’t give this much thought until I checked out the original source of the post, where I could no longer see it! What happened is that he posted this thought with a small circle of people, one of whom “shared” it with her larger Circle which is where I saw it and shared it.
But after you are conditioned to think that your sharing is so under control (you have painstakingly sorted your “friends” into “besties,” “weirdos” and “potential employers”) that now you have completely forgotten or never even thought to consider that if you didn’t disable the re-share option, what you’ve spoken, perhaps in confidence, has the immediate potential to escape your carefully inscribed Circle and wander out onto the wider web.
Google’s help page actually acknowledges this oddity:
Unless you disable reshares, anything you share (either publicly or with your circles) can be reshared beyond the original people you shared the content with.
No real moral here, I guess. Just keep that in mind.
image: XKCD
Two things just came to my attention about the nature of online life and interaction therein.
The first was published yesterday in the New York Times, entitled The Twitter Trap:
The most obvious drawback of social media is that they are aggressive distractions. Unlike the virtual fireplace or that nesting pair of red-tailed hawks we have been live-streaming on nytimes.com, Twitter is not just an ambient presence. It demands attention and response. It is the enemy of contemplation. Every time my TweetDeck shoots a new tweet to my desktop, I experience a little dopamine spritz that takes me away from . . . from . . . wait, what was I saying?
My mistrust of social media is intensified by the ephemeral nature of these communications. They are the epitome of in-one-ear-and-out-the-other, which was my mother’s trope for a failure to connect.
I’m not even sure these new instruments are genuinely “social.” There is something decidedly faux about the camaraderie of Facebook, something illusory about the connectedness of Twitter. Eavesdrop on a conversation as it surges through the digital crowd, and more often than not it is reductive and redundant. Following an argument among the Twits is like listening to preschoolers quarreling: You did! Did not! Did too! Did not!
Balancing this is a presentation at last week’s fab social media conference at UBC, Northern Voice. The title of the talk was “Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life.” It was given by a digital media director named Alexandra Samuel, and based on an article she wrote earlier for her Harvard Business Review blog:
Still, the fact that life online can occasionally surprise and delight us points us towards the truth: it’s not the Internet itself that leads to pathologies like cyber-bullying, spam and identity theft. Rather it’s our decision — individually and collectively — to separate the Internet from the context, norms and experience that guide human behavior. It’s our decision to engage in online interaction as if it were fundamentally different from offline conversation. It’s our decision to label the Internet as something — anything! — other than real life.
There’s no denying the differences between life online and off. In our online lives we shake off the limitations of our physical selves, perhaps even our names and consciences, too. What remains are the fundamentals: human beings, human conversations, human communities. To say that “reality” includes only offline beings, offline conversations and offline communities is to say that face-to-face matters more than human-to-human.
Who do you believe? Are your online interactions and relationships real for you? Or do you view Twitter merely as distraction? What I do know is that part of the challenge (and potential) of social media lies is shifting your online life into something more than just epehemera. It takes time, practice, and meaning, to find reality in online life.
I spent the evening, like many in North America, watching news reports and my Twitter feed fly by with the news and reactions to death/killing of Osama bin Laden. It’s interesting to me to watch the way these things go, because I’ve found for a while that people, including myself, complain about cable news. And how in spite of being on 24 hours a day, never seems to be quite up to speed. And how social media can help break those barriers.
Twitter doesn’t break news for me often in the sense that hours before an event is reported I know about it. It is my central channel for news, though, so what I like about social media is its ability to provide me with things that are easy to miss through all the pundit and questionable-expert-commentator babble.
https://twitter.com/#!/BoraZ/status/64920757137973248
Additionally, @whitehouse was live-tweeting Obama’s speech, which is good because I was able to revisit the soundbites I didn’t record while watching. Like this one:
https://twitter.com/#!/whitehouse/status/64897114781659137
Other social media are important in the evolution of the news cycle, beyond Facebook and Twitter. Don’t forget to check out the creation cycle of our modern encyclopedia, too:
http://twitter.com/#!/courosa/status/64895305874817026
Outside of the actual breaking news, tonight gave an important insight into why it is important to be authentic on social media. If you schedule your tweets in advance and news breaks, well, you might seem a bit out of place!
http://twitter.com/#!/stales/status/64887240815419393
It’s strange to have been out of the States for major political events in the past three years. I don’t miss the gross celebratory enthusiasm that accompanies military success; however, that is balanced by the recognized need for Obama and his nation to get a “win” under their belts.
http://twitter.com/#!/danhooker/status/64901183151669248
http://twitter.com/#!/simonslee/status/64909557499047937
My Twitter stream was also filled with jokes. Jokes about TSA security (“does this mean I can take X on a plane now?”), jokes about Donald Trump. But, my two favorites I’ll share here were unique (at least in my stream).
http://twitter.com/#!/drance/status/64886266424078336
http://twitter.com/#!/thesulk/status/64899861790720000
Finally, I’ll leave you with a thought from outside the USA, and looking ahead to tomorrow’s big night in Canada: the federal election. This is shaping up to be quite a week. Goodnight, Twitter. Thanks for the memories.
http://twitter.com/#!/doctorow/status/64920934720602112
In response to the Wall Street Journal reporting on the results of some preliminary clinical research done by Patients Like Me refuting the effectiveness of lithium to treat ALS, e-Patient Dave tweeted:
?? is PatientsLikeMe social media, like FB & Twitter?? Social media’s value as research tool. http://on.wsj.com/eB62aA (HT @seattlemamadoc)
— Dave deBronkart (@ePatientDave) April 26, 2011
@seattlemamadoc replied quickly:
@epatientdave I think of patientslikeme as a network. A social network. Don’t you?
— WendySueSwanson MD (@SeattleMamaDoc) April 26, 2011
I replied as well, with my initial thoughts:
@epatientdave interesting thought. Would you say it isn’t? I feel Pts like Me has many similar functions and affordances as other soc media
— Daniel Hooker (@danhooker) April 26, 2011
But by then it was too late. The premise had struck me: what if patient communities like Patients Like Me are somehow inherently different from other social media?
Social media is defined on Wikipedia as: “media for social interaction… the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue… a blending of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of value.”
Though I haven’t left behind the idea that the basic functions (profile, public/private messaging etc.) and affordances (seeking/finding people, networking, friendship, community) are similar between the two, what are some areas of difference between Patients Like Me and Facebook?
- User Intent. Does the reason why someone joins a network matter?** Is it acceptable to examine a network through qualities about which we may have no direct knowledge? In this context, is it different to be a patient than a tennis enthusiast or a knitter? Don’t we call those networks social media? Does the nature of the community’s users change its definition?
- Data usage (i.e. a network’s reason for being). My second thought about the separation of Facebook from Patients Like Me is the usage of the demographic information collected. As evidenced by the clinical trial, Patients Like Me is somewhat of a clinical experiment. They are using the voluntarily provided patient information to be able to create a data set used to support (or challenge) other medical evidence. Do the scientific goals of Patients Like Me have an impact on its definition? But in that light, Facebook’s sale of demographic data to their marketing partners may seem an even more sinister experiment. At least Patients Like Me is generally open about it.
I am still working through the areas of difference between the two networks and their significance. And though these distinctions may seem pedantic at this point, I have a sense that seeking deeper definitions of these platforms may increase in value as the critical discourse around social media advances. As more people become aware of these tools for use in a health care context, we will require ever more robust ways of describing what, exactly, they do and why, exactly, they are having such a profound impact on so many people’s lives.
Notes
**Not to go all English-major on you here, but in a similar way that reader-response critics responded to formalism by allowing room for the “user” experience in the interpretation of a work, so formally examining a social (net)work solely as a functional piece of software may be seen as insufficient in describing its true value or experience.
As we move forward as a collective community of health professionals on social media, I have been thinking a lot of what a major role Twitter plays in the connection and collaboration of such an incredibly large amount of people.
Communities of Practice are defined by Wenger as
groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.[1]
And even though now that Twitter (and many communities of practice within it, including #hcsm/ca/eu) has matured and is being used effectively by so many people, I am growing concerned about its future and about the deep reliance that we have on it for much of our day to day practice. The paradox of social media is that we are currently slave to the tools at our disposal. The more we espouse Twitter’s revolution on communciation practice, the more deeply we become inextricably tied to its specific solution for our broader desire: simple connectivity to a broad community of people “who share a passion.”
In a 2002 book, Wenger, McDermott & Snyder describe the 5 stages of the Community of Practice lifecycle [2]. Consider for a moment where you consider Twitter to be in the stages below:
- Potential (informal network of people with a commmon interest)
- Coalescence (Value seen from connection)
- Maturity (Focus and roles are clarified, active and dynamic enagagement)
- Stewardship (Organically evoloving and growing, CoP maintains relevance)
- Transformation (Radical transformation, dispersal, or death)
Here is how I think Twitter fits into this model:
- Potential. 2006-2007: Twittr launches as primarily SMS-based status tool, tech geeks at SXSW sign up.
- Coalescence. 2008: Membership moves beyond tech community as users begin to see promise in sharing more than just a status, and on more devices than simple cell phone. TinyURL, bit.ly, is.gd and other link shorteners bloom.
- Maturity. 2009-2010: Active communities form as membership mushrooms and communication and collaboration protocols are ironed out. First hashtags, then lists, continue to foster collaborative growth. Recognizing the ability to connect directly with their customers, businesses and celebrities invest heavily in their Twitter presence.
- Stewardship. 2010-2011: Twitter’s value beyond “what you had for breakfast” is no longer up for debate. It is finally OK to ignore the naysayers, and get to the meat of demonstrating and advocating for Twitter’s presence in a professional and collaborative context. Promoted Tweets appear. Increased pressure for Twitter’s monetization looms large as critical mass has been acheived in nearly every aspect of professionals, consumers, news outlets and advertisers.
- Transformation. 2011-?: The pressure for Twitter to become a business and not a collaborative tool grows too great. Maturing CoPs within Twitter (eg #hcsm/ca/eu) begin to look for other ways to collaborate and grow their practices beyond one platform. Businesses, advertisers, mass media outlets, and celebrities finally consolodate their hold over Twitter’s userbase.**
The importance of this model lies in the ability for us to evaluate our evolving use of Twitter as it fits into our work lives. Many of the people who read this blog I anticipate as being involved in health care, which is a field that is, in many ways, only beginning to incorporate social media into its professional practices and communications efforts.
Strategy is everything these days. Of course the broader concepts of information access and changing paradigms of online collaboration take precedent over any specific technological or software solution like Facebook or Twitter. But the extent to which the strategic conception of social media is incorporated into our on-the-ground work is still unstable. By that I mean, it is not unheard of to recommend Twitter to literally every organization that declares an interest in social media without a second thought. Today this is a safe bet. Next year or three years from now, we may be thinking twice.
But framing Twitter as a transforming Community of Practice may help to contextualize the position that we are all in as we build and invest our communications strategies on top of tools that are often less interested in freedom of information and communication than we may care to think. Because I believe in the collaborative power of social media, however, I look forward to seeing Twitter and the communities within it transform. And I also look forward to whatever it is that comes next.
**Excuse me while I digress as I truly don’t want to speculate as to the “future of social media” beyond this, but I feel the need to say: I have a feeling that blogging may see a resurgance as people grow weary of “promoted tweets” and ad-spam (I am already there and it has barely begun), and as they begin to seek ways to exert more control over their social media presence. Those who were on the social web before Twitter may return to their roots; Twitter natives will explore both the newest and oldest forms of online identity. And as for Facebook… well, who knows.
References
As I keep telling you, we’re busy developing content for a workshop on “Using social media for evidence-based practice” at the upcoming Cochrane Canada Symposium. Our three content areas of focus will be blogs, wikis and Twitter. As we develop a “manual” to hand out to participants, I put together a one- 0r two-pager on Twitter. Just the basics. Take a read, and let me know if it’s clear or if there’s anything, as a beginner, you’d wished you’d known. What do you need to know to get started on Twitter?
Twitter: a primer
Definition: Twitter is a “microblogging” (“tiny” blog) service that allows networks of users to send short updates to each other in less than 140 characters. Initially used to share personal information, Twitter is now a platform for global information dissemination, social networking and real-time communication.
Background: Twitter was launched in 2007 as a tool where personal updates were shared by cell phones but has expanded in popularity due to its simple, accessible way to connect with others. It is estimated that Twitter has 190 million users, generating 65 million tweets a day and handling over 24 billion search queries per month [2]. Today, Twitter allows for updates to be sent using SMS but has expanded to include software for the Web as well as smartphones (e.g. iPhone, Android, Blackberry).
Key characteristics of Twitter:
- Platform for sharing short updates called “tweets” of less than 140 characters
- Tweets often include links (URLs) or “mentions” of other Twitter users
- Personalized profiles include updates from people you choose to “follow”
- By including a topic keyword preceded by a ‘#’, users can find and track only those tweets related to a specific topic (e.g. #ehealth) or event (e.g. #ccsymp11)
- All tweets are public by default (i.e. other users can choose to follow you) but may be made private if desired
Uses of Twitter:
- Sharing links and opinions about online content (e.g. blog posts, literature) [3].
- Short conversations with other users and sharing of personal/professional opinions and expertise. (“Don’t underestimate this platform” [4])
- Collecting a broad view of current news and important events in real-time [5].
Challenges:
- Detailed conversations/debate are difficult to carry out effectively in 140 characters [6].
- Tweets are meant for consumption by the public; some may be uncomfortable with the “broadcast” nature of the tool [6].
- Spam and fake accounts are common. Requires proactive maintenance of your followers
Recommended Twitter Users:
- @cochranecollab: The Cochrane Collaboration: Working together to provide the best evidence for health care
- @DrVes: Assistant Professor at University of Chicago, Allergist/Immunologist, Internist. Former Cleveland Clinic Assistant Professor and NEJM Advisory Panel Member.
- @Berci: Medical doctor, founder of Webicina.com, health 2.0 consultant, blogger; Second Life resident, Wikipedia administrator doing PhD in genetics
- @laikas: Medical Librarian, scientist, mom, wife and human
Recommended hashtags:
- #ccsymp11: Cochrane Canada Symposium, 2011
- #hcsm: “Health care and social media”
- #hcsmca: Health care and social media in Canada
- Other hashtags to explore: #ehealth, #healthlit, #pharma
References:
- http://blog.twitter.com/2010/10/world-of-tweets.html
- http://searchengineland.com/twitter-search-queries-up-33-24-billion-searches-per-month-45840
- Mandavilli A. Peer review: Trial by Twitter. Nature. 2011 Jan 20;469(7330):286-7. doi:10.1038/469286a
- http://www.slideshare.net/mavergames/web-20-and-the-cochrane-collaboration-a-case-study?type=presentation
- Chew C, Eysenbach G. Pandemics in the age of Twitter: content analysis of Tweets during the 2009 H1N1 outbreak. PLoS One. 2010 Nov 29;5(11):e14118. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0014118
- Cunningham AM. What I have learnt about Twitter [blog post]. 2011 Jan 23. Available from: http://wishfulthinkinginmedicaleducation.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-i-have-learnt-about-twitter.html
- Hawn C. Take Two Aspirin And Tweet Me In The Morning: How Twitter, Facebook, And Other Social Media Are Reshaping Health Care. Health Aff. 2009 Mar;28(2):361-368. [link to abstract]
In preparation for my (and Dean Giustini and Francisco Grajales’s) workshop at the Cochrane Canada Symposium entitled “Using Social Media to Promote Evidence-Based Practice“, we have been pouring over literature, past presentations and other resources to figure out the best way to deliver a current and relevant workshop to the Cochrane community.
We met last night to discuss the various planning ideas that we had gathered so far for the workshop, and ended up having a great discussion on the biomedical blogosphere in general, and what, if any, roles the reflective learning and collaboration that blogs are so good at fostering play in the promotion and improvement of best evidence.
It’s true that in some fields, the amount of bloggers seriously taking a critical look at reviewing and synthesizing research literature may be thin (not every article gets the same treatment as the IBS/placebo study in PLoS One). No blogger can hope or aspire to replace the work that systematic reviews do in assembling, reviewing and appraising the state of the biomedical literature on a given research question. But they can promote discourse, even if it does not always bear directly on the improvement of a clinical treatment for a certain condition.
As we know, no evidence from a single source is complete. Certainly not from a celebrity blogger, but also not even necessarily from a world-renowned journal. One of the purposes that blogs serve is to equalize the publishing field, allow a commentary on certain (or any) topics and foster an overall engagement with evidence and practice that is simply not possible on another medium. Letters to the Editor may be the closest analogue but there are only so many published in any given issue, and, perhaps worse, they often face the same access restrictions that the full-text articles do. (Also, and this is an honest question: without a paper issue to flip through, do people read those anymore?)
I know we touched on more during our meeting, but I thought I would jot down these notes for now, leave them up to marinate for a month or so and see if my own or other reactions have changed at all between now and February. As we continue planning and I work this week on a one-pager about Twitter and EBM, there will likely be more ideas floating around.
Related:
- Laika’s MedLibLog. The Web 2.0-EBM Medicine split. [1] Introduction into a short series. April 1, 2009.
- Palepu A, Kahn N. Keeping up with the evidence. [PDF]. Canadian Society of Internal Medicine Annual meeting. October 27-30, 2010.
- Sciencebasedmedicine.org [great evidence-based blog]
- Workshop planning wiki page.
I was all set this week to write a post about all the cool new toys coming out to track your health at the Consumer Electronics Show. For the uninitiated, CES is a massive trade show where companies set up demos in a huge Vegas convention hall, and all you can read on the tech blogs all week is about gadgets that have just arrived, and will soon be on the market, ready to change your life. Of course, most of these new products never do see the light of day, and what you get is a lot of hype for products that, by and large, you never hear about again.
And I never thought the health market had a niche there, but they do. My hunch is that health technologies probably didn’t have much presence at CES until the iPhone came along, because CES is so heavily gadget-focused. But whatever the case is, health gadgets are all the rage there now. For instance, there’s the
- iPhone ECG: “The AliveCor iPhonECG is a slim case that fits over a smart phone. Low-power electrodes on the case are pressed against the fingers or chest of a person to display electrical activity of the heart.”
- iPhone Blood Pressure Cuff: Actually, there’s another one of these, and they both debuted at CES.
- Then of course, there’s the CES announcement that a fingertip pulse oximeter will integrate with Microsoft Health Vault in coming months. You can pick one up for the low-low price of $265 USD.
There’s more where that came from. But back to my point: does any of this hype matter? Should we really be spending our time and energy worrying about the newest gadgets on one week of the year?
The only reason why I’m even bothering to ask (assuming the answer is usually, “Sure, why not?) is because I read a really nice column by Farhad Manjoo entitled “The most worthless week in tech.” Observe:
In private, gadget reporters will tell you that covering the show is a tremendous hassle and rarely yields any interesting news. But because CES demos make for great headlines and visuals—hey look, Steve Ballmer unveiled a tablet PC even before Apple did!—and because of the sheer volume of new stuff to post about, CES is a boon for gadget blog traffic and a honeypot for advertisers…
So, why is CES so dependably dreary? It’s the curse of that old Yogi Berra joke—nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded. If you’re a big tech company with something truly great to push, you’d be foolish to tell the world at CES.
He goes on to argue that CES is just fodder for “bogus hype” and that the things that truly matter take place at other times of the year. In fact, thanks to the web, they can take place whenever you want. If what you have is going to change tech or health care, it doesn’t matter if you announce it from a press conference in Vegas or on your blog from your basement. If it’s great, it’s great. If it’s not, well, just because you have live audience can’t change that.
Being a somewhat gadget-loving guy myself, reading that article in the middle of the week last week kinda put a damper on things for me, so I thought I’d save it just in case, to give you one last hoorah with CES and all the glitz and glam. And now that it’s over, this year, I’ll be paying attention all year long. Looking not just for the latest gadget to take my blood pressure, but something that has some potential to make my life and yours truly better.
