Via Gizmodo, on why society is doomed:

We get suckered in to covering CES like it’s the second coming every year; we brought something like 14 people this time around. For what? So we can cover stuff we normally would pass on in hopes that we can get it up three minutes before Engadget. Companies cocktease us and make us go and do pointless liveblogs of their boring press conferences only to announce minor upgrades of the same garbage they released last year. This is worth 14 round-trip airline tickets and a dozen hotel rooms for a week?

Dude. I didn’t go to CES this year for a reason – what’s the point? To see a bigger screen TV? Another iPod accessory? More digital photo frames? For an airplane ticket, take taxis around town, stay in an overpriced hotel room, wait in long lines for everything, get headaches from all the smoke and dry air in Vegas, etc.?

I stayed at home and made money instead of spending it.

This isn’t sour grapes – I could have gone to CES if I wanted to go. But seriously, with every other tech blogger going there and covering the event… there was ABSOLUTELY NO NEED FOR ME TO GO. One blogger is just as good as another blogger is just as good as another blogger if they’re all covering the same thing. Tech bloggers are a commodity – they’re all publishing to the same people.

“I have a blog that gets thousands of hits every month” may sound impressive to someone else, but not to me.

When press agencies contacted me before CES, I told ‘em I was sitting this one out – knowing full well that they’d never send me something to review, anyway. And even when review units are sent to my doorstep, I turn around and give a lot of ‘em away to the community… including full-blown computers.

Covering events is important, but I’d much rather cover events that few others in my community are covering.

Press Manipulation and Blog Wars

January is a magical time if you’re a geek. It brings with it many sacred holidays, such as CES and MacWorld. But what if you can’t make the journey to mecca — be it for financial reasons, or maybe you just couldn’t book a hotel? Thankfully in this Web-based world, it’s easy to enjoy the whole event right from your comfy chair.

I’ve compiled a list of sites that will have live coverage of CES 2008.

• Gadgetell — Has a standalone CES coverage page being filled with news as we speak, as well as a live Twitter feed where the whole team will be twittering news and updates throughout the week, not to mention live blogging major press events. [RSS -- Twitter]

• Engadget — Good ol’ Engadget will also be covering CES live this year. It has a dedicated CES page and will likely be live blogging events. [RSS]
• CNET — CNET will be covering the event in the form of text and video, so you can see and hear what’s important and feel like you’re there. [RSS]
• Scoble / Podtech — Robert traveled down to CES on a bus this year with a bunch of other bloggers and will be covering the event live over video through the Mogulus service.
• Gizmodo — Gizmodo will also be blogging major CES updates and possibly live blogging press events. [RSS]
• Futureshop — Futureshop, the Canadian tech store, will be posting videos of the CES keynotes, press conferences, and booth tours throughout the week.
• SlashGear — SlashGear has a dedicated section devoted to nothing other than CES news and updates for the week. [RSS]
• Digital Trends — Digital Trends will be covering all important CES updates and releases. [RSS]
• Laptop Mag — Laptop Mag will be on scene at CES and covering more than just laptop news. [RSS]
• BluefoxTV — Fellow UStreamer bluefox is planning on streaming the events of CES Live over UStream.

This is who I’ll be watching for CES 2008 coverage. If I missed some major ones, drop a comment below and I’ll try to add them in. Don’t forget to bookmark the page or subscribe to the RSS feeds. Oh, and we might also be talking about the latest announcements in our own live feed.

Where to Watch for Live CES 2008 Updates