Like most of the technology journalists I know, I’m in Las Vegas this week to attend the International Consumer Electronics Show. Matt Buchanan is not. Over at BuzzFeed, he has explained why he thinks the venerable conference is no longer relevant, or at least not relevant enough to be worth the trek to Vegas. A sampling of his reasoning: By Google chairman Eric Schmidt’s reckoning, there are now four technology companies that truly matter to people: Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google. None of them are at CES. Apple’s last appearance was in 1992. Microsoft, which delivered the CES keynote for years, announced — before last year’s keynote, even — that it would not return in 2013. Its keynote spot is being taken over by Qualcomm, which is mostly known for making chips for phones, and its centerpiece booth now hosts Hisense, a state-owned Chinese manufacturer you probably haven’t heard of. There probably isn’t a more precise illustration of what’s happened to CES: The booth of the world’s biggest software company is now occupied by a company mostly noted for its production of cheap HDTVs that line the shelves of Walmarts across the country.And any event, by any of those five companies, announcing nearly anything — even the flops — is instantly more significant to consumers than practically anything announced at CES. iPhone. Kindle. Windows. Timeline. Project Glass. Buchanan’s piece is a good read, and he makes a convincing case that CES is a fundamentally flawed enterprise. But… I’ve been attending humongous tech trade shows since Adam Osborne was alive and keynoting them. I attended my first CES in 1994 and have been to more than my share of Comdexes, IFAs, CEATECs, Mobile World Congresses and other CES-like events on multiple continents. Altogether, I must have spent more than a year of my life at them, which is enough to leave me wanting to plead for special dispensation when it comes time to chat with St. Peter. And you know what? There was never a golden age of CES, or shows
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