Farewell and Thanks from CES 2008

Well...

Its all over but the packing and shipping

So before we play the last hand and give out the last 2GB flash drive, let's re-cap a little, shall we?

• We saw some stars
  
  
• We produced a lot of content, turning our booth into a second home for our on-air and online brands.
  
  
• Our NBC Universal volunteer booth staff greeted thousands of attendees who visited our Jack Morton Worldwide designed booth (complete with a 100-foot peacock-themed mobile)
  
  
• Our visitors downloaded nearly ten-thousand pieces of NBCU content from the Mediaport-powered download kiosks.
  
  
• American Express Open (powered by Peacock Productions) shot every day and created some programming magic of their own last night.
  
  
• Our fuzzy-chaired blogging station made news every day.
  
  
• Peter Frampton played for us at the Gibson guitat tent.
  
  
• Maria Bartiromo made the cover of Vegas magazine.
  
  
• And, oh yes, we got to see some cool new consumer electronics.

All of it was the result of tremendous work from a best-in-the-business creative and production team drawn from every part of the company.

So until we meet again.

Remember....

NBC Universal

Consumers. Content. Connection

It all happens here

Frank Radice
Mark Lukasiewicz
Jay Linden

PS -- We want to leave you with this image of the future.  An early adopter who was one of the last visitors to our booth today.  Meet Sarah Elizabeth Foulke, age 5-1/2 months, downloading some NBCU content with a little help from mom, Heather Moler.

Thank You Bloggers!

By Jon Accarrino, NBC Universal

Everything comes to an end... even CES. The hordes of convention attendees have started to thin out. The lines for things like food, taxis, and bathrooms have all drastically shortened. And believe it or not I actually got a seat on the Las Vegas Monorail this morning.

On behalf of the blogger platform, I just wanted to say thank you to the "fans" of this blog who stopped by to say hi (people were really reading this), celebrities like Damon Wayans, Jessica Kumari and David Pogue who posed for photos here, and especially the the guest bloggers below who kept the fuzzy white Austin Powers chairs warm all week.

• Frank Radice, NBC Universal
• Mark Lukasiewicz, NBC Universal
• Bill Hartnett, NBC Universal
• Staci D. Kramer, paidContent.org
• Peter Pachal, DVICE.com
• Aaron Broder, Scholastic
• Jeff Gralnick, NBC Universal
• Khalid and Doug, GizmosForGeeks.com
• S. E. Kramer, DVICE.com
• Chris Jones, DVICE.com
• Jennie Baird, iVillage
• Bonnie Optekman, NBC News
• Bob Sullivan, MSNBC.com
• Scott Leon, NBC Universal

And let's not forget Rosie, who showed up on the blogger platform again this morning!

Overall it was a great show. There were lots of great electronics here at CES and the exhibitor booths looked great.

I just have one suggestion for Jack Morton Worldwide, the people who made our booth. There was something missing from the wall behind the blogger platform. Nothing major. Just a little red arrow. I fixed it in Photoshop.

CES 2008 - Winding Down

By Jon Accarrino, NBC Universal

CES 2008 is winding down. Just 2 more hours to go until the convention floor closes and all the exhibitors start packing up their booths. Mark Lukasiewicz, the CES project leader for NBC Universal, is sitting with me on the blogger station right now in a white fuzzy chair. Mark is writing a blog post to sum up everything we did here at CES.

And Gia Pace is doing her best to keep the booth staff hydrated until the very end. Hey, we are in the middle of the desert right?

Open Standards

By Bonnie Optekman, NBC News

While I was blogging away yesterday, consulting my notes, checking my facts, my friend Jon Accarrino, I see, was blogging about me blogging!

First off, I promised to clean up the blogging station when I was done. It wasn't that bad!!!

Second, geez – did the picture HAVE to go to the floor? I mean, not just my papers, but my sneakers!

Ok – onto business – what’s worse than your Blackberry not working? Having it not work when you’re at CES and it’s your lifeline! While my technology friends got it sorted out, I relied on text messages (see my earlier blog). Other people may want to just carry around one device. I find that to be a gamble and need a backup!

One big message that comes through loud and clear here is that "Open" is the new "Black" as I heard at one of the CES sessions. Software and hardware companies and cellphone carriers must be able to talk to each other with open standards on every platform and in every technology to make life easier for us.

I bought a micro SD card and carrier software for my nephew Craig so he could download his songs to his phone. Needless to say – conflicts with proprietary carrier software as well as Macs and PCs made that fruitless and we’re still trying to figure out the easiest way to do it, if there is an easy way.

In social networking sites, Facebook led the way by making its code public and open to third party applications.

And speaking of social networking, I was astonished to see my 5-year-old nephew flying around the Webkinz site. That stuff about digital natives is really true.

Here’s Benjamin with a little entertainment.

Some Closing Thoughts About CES 2008

By Jeff Gralnick, NBC Universal

And after several days of criss-crossing the display floors, you keep running into things that make you think what WERE they thinking?

Case in point: The company that decided to hawk its service with perky young women wearing t-shirts that said: What's In Your Cardslot?

Yes. It's all about marketing here and it's all about getting noticed in this sea of next big things, but really.

Then there was the young woman playing the harp which was a nice touch in this sea of noise but what were THEY thinking?

Harp. Camcorders. Of course. How silly of me.

But wait, there's more.

Whoever dreamed up those three young women dressed in skimpy outfits that glittered like disco balls as they ran through an overly-choreographed dance routine while playing new wave music on digital violins as one company's latest and greatest in cell phones was being pitched?

And they were thinking?

Sex sells cell phones. How could I have missed THAT?

But did anybody hear a word of it?

So if they've thought all this up for this year, whatever will they do for next year?

One can hardly wait.

How To Use The Download Kiosks

By Jon Accarrino, NBC Universal

Almost every booth here at CES is giving away some cool promotional item or "swag" as we like to call it. I've seen flashlight pens, t-shirts, luggage tags, and even inflatable pool rafts.

But here in the NBC Universal booth, we aren't just giving away 15,000 SanDisk USB memory sticks, but free downloadable content (like TV shows and games) from any of the 10 Mediaport kiosks located in and around our booth. Nearly 10,000 downloads have taken place already.

Lynne Wisnefski, from The NBC Agency, has been handing out these 2GB SanDisk USB flash drives all week. She was kind enough to do a video demonstration on how to use the Mediaport kiosks.

Enjoy.

Thursday, January 10

03:30 AM - 06:00 AM     Telemundo

04:00 AM - 07:00 AM     NBC News Channel

04:00 AM - 07:30 AM     Today Show - Paul Hochman

02:00 PM - 03:00 PM     Telemundo

First Impressions

By Jeff Gralnick, NBC Universal

CES is what NAB was.

Millions of square feet of what the developers and sellers hope are the next big idea. It's psychic, sensory and selling overload on the grandest of scales. It's every bit a carnival midway where all those barkers want to do is get you into the tent.

At NAB it was virtual studios and techless control rooms that were being pitched along with next generation minicams and the newest in transmission portability.

And what's changed? Not much. Now it is virtual everything that is on offer along with next generation DV cameras and camcorders and the total portability that current and next generation wireless technologies are producing.

21st century CES, like 20th century NAB before it, is an open door on the future of our business. Smaller. Faster. Lighter. Cheaper. Those were the hallmarks of what we looked for at NAB and are the hallmarks of what all 140,000 of us are looking for now.

It's the future we're finding ways to hurry into and that's why we're here.

We Put Video Front and Center

By Bill Hartnett, NBC Universal

Stage Two at the NBCU booth was the place to be right after NBC Nightly News this afternoon. Brian Williams did a quick update on the broadcast (Bill Richardson dropped out of the presidential race) and dashed from Stage One to officially launch the new nightly.msnbc.com. Brian was joined by his Executive Producer Alex Wallace, MSNBC.com President & General Manager Charlie Tillinghast and East Coast Deputy Editor Randy Stearns.

Randy Stearns, Brian Williams & Charlie Tillinghast

"We're happy to be at CES. We are very excited about our new website," announced Williams. Not only can you see the whole broadcast on the site, you can see plenty of additional web-only video, produced every day by the NBC Nightly News team. They only have 22 minutes of airtime, but now you can see a bigger newscast online. You can create your own playlists and watch what you want to watch. It's all about video and it looks great in the new video player.

Randy Stearns did the demo and summarized the philosophy of the site, "We put video front and center."

Double Starpower Eclipsed?

by Bill Hartnett, NBC Universal

Yesterday I mused that Brian Williams might have a tough time competing with the standing room only crowd attracted by the double whammy of Maria Bartiromo and Nancy O'Dell on Closing Bell.

Well it was put up or shut up time today when NBC Nightly News took the stage. The crowd gathered for Nightly was HUGE. Did Brian accomplish a stunning comeback? Estimates and exit polls vary, but as of this writing NBC News Stabdards has told us it is still too close too call.