CES is just around the corner, much to every geek’s delight. The annual Consumer Electronics Show has gotten even bigger over the past few years with the addition of minute by minute coverage from websites like TechCrunch and Mashable, bringing consumer electronics to the masses in 140 characters or less.
As social media professionals and hobbyists – we take our personal devices seriously. It’s how we stay connected to our online and IRL friends. It’s how we share information, gather and analyze news, and keep in touch. Social media and consumer electronics go together like ice cream and cake, spaghetti and meatball, lamb and tuna fish.
What’s the next great thing to come at CES? A few of our chapter leaders from around the world had some thoughts, predictions, previews, wishes and dreams…
Thanks to Laurent Blondeau from France, Syed Raza from India, Steven Groves from Denver, CO, and Caitlin Muir from San Antonio, TX for their responses!
How do technology, gadgets and/or tools impact your social interactions?
Gadget and tools change fast – hardly worth discussing. Yes of course, tablet computing will expand, with the iPad 3 an interim step to a much better non-Apple future of tablet computing. The staff that works at Apple and held personal allegiance to Steve Jobs, will leave and spread throughout the industry taking the knowledge and expertise developed at Apple to the rest of the market. We’ll start seeing better human-to-device capabilities in all devices. – Steven Groves
My latest BB Bold adds the mobility I want in my basic work schedule (as a social media strategist/blogger). – Syed Raza
The increasing connection factor with Mobile/Local phenomena: huge applications with traditional commerce with localization apps (Foursquare, Tellmewhere, FB places…) and the first ROI on traditional business. Also, after “markets are conversations”, then “objects are conversations”: the walk to objects connection and MtoM effects in social circles. – Laurent Blondeau
Technology moves fast, and the growing number of people with smartphones and tablets means the average user can move with it. My own social interactions with a smartphone have increased dramatically, and apps and built in functionality (such as the ability to tweet a photo direct from your iphone) make it even easier to share information with your friends and followers. – Larissa Fair
What are this year’s big trends (2011 or looking to 2012)?
Mobile Internet and measurable marketing practices – Mobile Internet will continue to expand as smartphone adoption soars. Measurable marketing with all the noise this year about ROI in social media, the paradigm will evolve to include marketable measurement of all marketing. – Steven Groves
I think the biggest trends of 2011 were Android 2.3 ice cream sandwich, iPad 2 and iPhone 4. – Syed Raza
A few ideas from Laurent Blondeau:
- maybe a converging frame for social TV (techs/protocol/ergonomics): Google/Apple/Samsung/Devicers that will allow the real development for users: merging social apps to TV screens will burst traditional ads revenues and TV addict behaviors; for a new interaction between TV networks and consumers e-readers will go tablets: transformation for books industry (mass market appeal?)
Big trends continue to be mobile location-based services (with everything from daily deal flash sites to special deals pinging your phone as you walk by a store), and streaming media. – Larissa Fair
What’s the next technology to converge?
Mobile will expand geometrically – 10 times larger than today by the end of 2012. The use of mobile devices as a primary device will grow in the US, mirroring the global user model. Businesses will adopt location-based marketing in droves, leveraging consumer offers to drive behavior. – Steven Groves
The biggest trend in convergence will be transmedia books. Everyone already reads on their Kindle or iPad. Imagine what it would be like to have your other senses engaged. Think of reading Snow White and smelling the poisoned apple, listening to the sound of the dwarves picks in the mines, and feeling a cool blast of air during the chilling parts of the tale. I think in the coming year, publishers will start working more with developers and technology companies to bring these ideas to pass. – Caitlin Muir
Google wallet rolled down along with the fad of Jelly Bean Androids, advanced integrated functioning in Siri. – Syed Raza
Tech convergence predictions: tablets go mobile, smartphones go PC/laptop: the place for the “old” PC/Laptop ?. And, the TV is now a computer: is there a Moore’s law for TV devices now (which are on a longer renewal cycle than PCs)? – Laurent Blondeau
The next technology to converge will be television and PCs. We see it already with the ability to stream audio and video through the Internet (Pandora, Spotify, iTunes, NetFlix, Hulu). Your TV will in essence become your home computer (or vice versa) as more and more people are connecting to the Internet, viewing photos, videos and listening to music through their TV. That combined with the power of streaming through video game consoles will leave devices like Blu-Ray players and VCR’s (who has a VCR still?) almost useless in the next few years. And, once gaming goes truly in the cloud, those video game consoles might become obsolete too. – Larissa Fair
What are your predictions? What are you looking forward to seeing at CES this year? What will be the next hot thing?
[Image credit: CES]