Ok, the original plan was to blog from the show floor of CES, but honestly, it was so hectic and exhausting I quickly had to give up those plans.  I don’t know how those pros from Engadget, Gizmodo, Boing Boing Gadgets, Ubergizmo and dozens more are able to do it.  Probably not also working a demonstration booth does help though.

From First

I ended up spending most of my time working with the boxee team, showing off their outstanding social media center application.  As I said in a previous post, this is some very, very good technology, having grown from the XBMC project but quickly maturing as boxee.  It is genuinely a pleasure to talk with people about a product that can so positively impact their media experiences.  In many ways the experience of the boxee booth at CES 2009 was a lot like the DivX booth back a couple of years ago, when it was really just beginning to make a splash on the US business radar.  Lots of VC types hovering around, trying to first figure out what this crazy thing was and second attempting to assess its money-making potential.  We’ll see how things develop this time around, though.

Boxee did a very smart thing for this CES.  They had 4 boxee users flown in to man the booths and give demos.  Melody, Jeremy, Nate, and Patrick were phenomenal spokespeople for the product, as they brought insight, knowledge and passion that just can’t be faked.  More companies should think about doing similar things in the future.

What interesting things did I see besides boxee? The other Stage Two clients were all remarkably great.  Bug Labs is just so cool, and I hope to put together something for them and my wife’s Children’s Museum.  Splashtop has a lot of potential, and a use case that never would have occurred to me, which is to use it as something of a web sandbox, visiting sites that might prove otherwise dangerous to one’s main OS.  Very, very clever.  And finally PogoPlug, an excellent device that has a lot of great thought put into it, and a number of very practical uses.  And also a very impressive team, that certainly deserve further watching.

From First

I really didn’t have a lot of time to check out much more sadly.  On the request of a friend I did go to the Pacemaker booth to see their portable DJ system in person.  It was awesome!  I’m the last guy on earth to ever be a DJ, but this thing could probably even make me sound half-way decent.  Also, the guy at the booth, a very hip English DJ type, did give me a great compliment on my glasses, so clearly they have impeccable taste.

I’ve long been a fan of Chumby, and consider Andrew “bunnie” Huang to be an incredible guy, both personally and professionally.  Their new digital picture frame technology is very cool and could actually get me to want a digital picture frame, new easy feat.

Ostendo demoed their curved monitors, something that has seemed just around the corner for a while.  By actually getting these things to market, they will have done something quite impressive.  If nothing else, I would so love to have one for FPS games.

And what would a trip to Vegas be without some serious cheese.  Stage Two was kind enough to invite me along to see the Blue Man Group in performance.  I’m not sure what I was expecting but it was pretty weird.  Some parts were very impressive, some parts were downright lame, and quite a bit of it was simply inexplicable.  Overall, though, my main impression was that it was pretty dated, and some of the other people along claimed the show had not really changed much in over ten years, something I found very easy to believe.  All I could think of was Arrested Development and Pentium ads.  Very odd.

Maybe most importantly at CES this year I got to catch up with a number of old friends and colleagues, and got to meet a number of very cool new acquaintances.  I love gadgets, I love consumer electronics, but this aspect of trade shows is always the best.

The ease of use, the obvious focus on what the user wants (and not what the software or hardware maker wants to sell you), and the open philosophy at its heart, all make boxee very compelling, even for a skeptic like me.  It also ties very well into what I heard Reed Hastings talk about at the NewTeeVee Live conference.  Ultimately, what you will see on your TV will be the web, but accessed and controlled with a remote.  And boxee is a big step in that direction. Stay tuned to some very cool announcements from boxee tomorrow.

Also got to meet the team from Bug Labs today.  Another very cool product, although much more of a targeted item.  Looking forward to playing around with it more during the show.

Stay tuned for more coverage tomorrow after the doors of the show open…

So, this was not exactly what I was expecting. I am doing some freelance work at CES for StageTwo, including helping boxee. Guess who they were placed next at the Unveiled press event?

Who else?

D’oh!

A key conceptual question for me will be the place of P2P in CES. Hope open will the CE companies that benefit from the massive file-sharing of content be about their interest? Can they be honest about it? If not, how will they talk around it? Time will tell…