Looking Back on CES

I 'm now back from CES. Here's a quick roundup of highlights that you probably won't find elsewhere:

• USB pen from Duracell (granted, Jay Kolbe from Weber Shandwick mentioned these things are eons old - it's my first though, and it's a full gigabyte, so not bad utility-wise)


• read it online - really clever PR hook; while I haven't yet read it cover to cover, a PC Magazine writer was telling me this is one of Microsoft's better products, even if the average computer user isn't quite ready for it)


• Free Tastebook voucher from Skype with free minutes (Chaim Haas, great seeing you)

  Even with some fun giveaways this year, nothing topped last year's best and most useful goodie: a 2 gigabyte USB drive from Microsoft, which amazingly I still have and manage to keep on me every workday

  Best stats
  • I was taking some notes during Indecision 2008 from Comedy Central (pardon the aside; that's a freebie for Don Steele, who out of 150,000-200,000 people I always managed to run into at the show). Most exciting marketing channels for 2008
    • Tie: P2P advertising and mobile (both came up repeatedly during the panel, though note this was Digital Hollywood and CES, so you won't hear as much about P2P at a retail event, for instance) Biggest letdowns
      • Yahoo - this year's tent had coffee and assorted nuts, but even the dark chocolate covered peanuts can't compare to last year when they had Cold Stone Creamery (maybe if the stock goes up they'll serve iPod Nano loaded with  Comments