Consumer-Free Electronics

Two shadows hung over the CES show in Las Vegas last weekend. The first was a stylish silhouette wearing white ear buds - courtesy of the geniuses at Chiat/Day and Cupertino - and the second was a shock jock who trades on potty jokes.

Apple didn't attend. But the iPod has had such a tectonic impact on the consumer electronics industry that it's influence was felt with almost every vendor at CES, large or small. From the stalls of the tiny Asian importers to the over-the-top extravaganzas of Panasonic, XM, and Sony - everybody wants to be on the bandwagon of simplicity and style. But such clean elegance is elusive - they're always adding buttons, explanations, bridge and connector technologies to their consumer goods. Few technologies play nice with each other - and Joe and Sally Consumer don't want to fiddle around with card readers, network attached storage, and various kinds of bluetooth - not to mention the mother of all format battles between Blu-Ray and DVD-HD high quality video formats - a struggle that will make VHS - Betamax look like a girlie slap fight.

The average consumer was, in fact, nonexistent at CES. Most of these duffers were male and in their 30s and 40s, and juggling a laptop, mp3 player, portable, bluetooth ear-piece, and a PSP for the waiting moments. This slacker-meets-Borg demographic was everywhere, and if you looked closely you can see all of the reasons why new consumer electronics are a fetish to some but a curse to many. This was less true of the businessfolks ostensbly from Asia - who looked lean and exact. (Draw any conclusions you like, or none.)

But how does Howard Stern influence consumer electronics? Because he represents the notion that content is king, no matter what the media. XM satellite radio is slicker, simpler and better marketed, from what I could tell. They may eventually win out - but for now people want to hear more Stern. I suspect if his fans had to use a hand-cranked radio to tune in his broadcast they'd do it.

New technologies - the players, screens, readers and devices - are only useful if somebody has something entertaining or otherwise interesting to communicate through these new forms of media. The consumer isn't well served by thousands of channels of crap which contain high-definition infomercials. Do you want to wach re-runs of CHiPs on your $400 cell phone? This hit home when I was visiting the Intel "lounge", and they were demonstrating some supposedly glamorous new technology, AOL music on demand with the new Viiv chip or whatever - and this was running on a plasma TV. And do you know what they were showing? The Moody godamn Blues. On this fantastic, high-tech, super expensive flat-panel monitor they're showing a bunch of aging rockers and you can see every line on their Botoxed, grimacing mugs.

I'm a cold sucker for new technology. I'm the target demographic. But you profit-loving MBAs who steer the entertainment conglomerates need to quickly recognize that's it's important to offer as much originality with content as with the whizbang technology. And you need to make it clean and easy to use. Grandma doesn't want to download a codec or update the godamn firmware before she can watch that adorable Rachel Ray. And neither do I.