FredericMartin - Blognotes 2.0

What are the latest trends in consumer electronics?

The big Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (CES) has unveiled the latest consumer tech trends this week. I´ve twitted the most interesting products including pictures: follow me at www.twitter.com/FredericMartin. Key-trends include LED-TV with more competitors on board, internet capable TVs with embedded Yahoo widgets (Samsung, Sony, etc), 240Hz TVs (!), Netflix and YouTube streaming (on  TVs, players and camcorders), ultra thin TVs (1inch-), netbooks with new competitors on board (Sony, HP etc), picoprojectors (cute and tiny, Samsung, Toshiba etc), iPhone new rivals (Palm, Samsung etc) as well as compact & cute HD camcorders. An interesting and major point at CES: Cisco is entering the consumer electronics markets with big intentions (and big cash) and with a clear focus on video. By the way, they are showing a home theatre! Very Interesting move. I think  the point is not whether they succeed in establishing a strong consumer brand but how fast they will (to that matter, read my previous post on Cisco).

IFA 2008 Consumer Electronics Trends

The biggest fair for consumer electronics  - IFA - has just opened in Berlin. After 'big' and 'sharp' in the previous editions, the key-word this year is 'thin' and 'light', or to put it more commercial 'super thin' and 'super light'. Super thin LCD-TVs, super thin notebooks, super light notebooks and mini notebooks. So, this year again, we are speaking more of design improvements rather than really breakthrough innovations. I'm posting pictures of this event on Flickr.

Tech gadgets: Who's the buzz master?

Three continents, three top buzzers: Nokia for Europe, Sony for Asia and Apple for the US. Who's winning? The Americans are still far ahead. After an amazing buzz in January with the MacBook Air at the Apple Expo, the Californian company is back with the launch of the new 3G iPhone. They do have a sense for launching products there. As shown on this Blogpulse graph, they set a new record today and equaled their january buzz. Sony and Nokia still have a lot to learn on how to organize a successful launching campaign online, despite doing pretty well in PR 2.0.

Tracking the opinions on a product

I posted some time ago on various product search engines. Swotti is a new one and definitely the best one I know. Swotti tracks the opinions for a product and aggregates the results in a very efficient way. On the right, the comments with a graphic chart showing the positive and negative scores (general and feature related). On the left some pictures of the product. And in the middle a summary showing graphically the percentage of positive and negative opinions and below the rating split per feature. Interesting is the high number of opinions returned. In case of the Apple iPhone, over 2400, so the sample is relevant. This is definitely a good tool for consumers but also for marketers to assess their products versus competitors and to find out what should be upgraded. This semantic engine claims to index 3 million opinions per day!

Tech Trends at Cebit 2008, Hannover

The biggest fair for IT is over. What are the key-trends 2008? In this presentation, I picked some key-topics which I found especially interesting.

Future Mobile Phone powered by Nanotechnologies

  Imagine a mobile phone that you can fold around your arm. Imagine a phone that cleans itself. Imagine a phone whose shape is changing to adapt to your style. Welcome to the world of nanotechnologies. Nokia - in association with Cambridge University - is working on a prototype called Morph to demonstrate possibilities offered by nanotechnologies in the future. According to the manufacturer such concepts could reach the consumer market in the next ten to fifteen years.

Find the best electronic products

  alaTEST is a really great free service that inform consumers around the world on the quality of electronic products. Pick a category (phone, TV, mp3, notebook, camcorder, digital cameras etc) and choose your geographic scope (worldwide, Europe, Unites Sates or any other country). The service shows best tested and reviewed products by major magazines of the chosen area. You can refine with various criteria including price and features and even compare the products. The service has over 2.000.000 product reviews from over 700 international sources.

Homepage:

e.g. Samsung TVs:

CES Las Vegas: Consumer Electronics Trends 2008

  The international CES fair for Consumer Electronics is opening to the press. We will report on major trends in the next days. Major interests will include big flat displays, full HD, OLED, wireless networking, ultra mobile PC, new mobile apps, online gaming etc. LINKS: - Official blog - NYC preview (video) - Twitter feeds - CES photos on Flickr - Virtual Press Office - Engadget @ CES - Gizmodo - NY Times @CES - YouTube CES channel - RSS feeds:

Green Electronics brand ranking

Greenpeace have just pusblished their new ranking of green brands in consumer electronics. Samsung and Sony Ericsson are the good guys whereas Philips, Microsoft and Nintendo are the bad guys. The full analysis is downloadable here.

Consumer Electronics 2.0, update 4