MSP [] MATTSPLAINED [] MSPx

If you’re a techie or a geek you will probably have noticed that the 2018 edition of the Consumer Electronics Show was held in Las Vegas last week, although increasingly it’s with a sense of diminishing returns.

The show, which has been running in some form since 1967 and annually since the early 2000’s has come to dominate the consumer electronics industry, and certainly, in the ten years from 2005 to 2015, CES was the event for manufacturers: that one they couldn’t afford to miss. For consumers, it was something to look forward to in January: a way to get over those post Xmas Blues.

As I said, CES has dominated the consumer tech world for the last ten years. The last two years have show a marked decline in the show’s importance. Those were years when a smart hairbrush and an electric car that still hasn’t made it into production were part of the breakout news of the year.

This year continues the trend - Not a lot of big news from the show this year. It does seem that unless the show’s organisers can really pull something out of the bag for 2019 and beyond, there’s a very real chance that we have gone past the glory days of CES being the go-to showcase for the gadgets and gizmos we’ll all be buying up over the coming year. Which would be a shame. I’m a big fan of the show and trade fairs like this in general.

You might wonder why – as the kind of consumer technology that CES specialises in becomes more and more integral to our lives – that the show seems to be waning?

Partly it seems to be because technology is becoming too big for CES or any other single show. We’ve seen the evolution of CES: one year the smart home is the big thing. The next it’s robots. Then robot cars. But AI is upending that trend. As we build the Internet and communicability into every single device, everything becomes technology. Even the terrible ideas like smart juicers and salt shakers that track your sodium intake. When everything belongs at CES it’s hard to find the space or justify the expense. So, perversely, at the very time we should be celebrating the place of events like CES, instead it seems to be becoming increasingly irrelevant.

At the same time, the crowd-funding model has enabled smaller developers to enter the market, and because they are pitching directly to their target market, performing the not inconsiderable feat of convincing consumers to pay for something that may not have reached prototyping stage, let alone retail.

As well as allowing smaller players to fight against the big boys, it puts them beyond the rigid campaign cycle of the traditional retail sector. And it also gives them more freedom to maneuver. Instead of competing for air space in a crowded January announcement market, players both big and small can now decide on their own airtime and make their pitch more effectively.

We’re going to take a quick break. Stay around for more on CES.

Before the break, we were talking about CES, the ubiquity of AI and the Internet of Things, and the effect that the crowd-funding model is having on product release cycles.

Which brings us back to the big boys. A lot of the bigger manufacturers prefer to stage their own events where their hero status won’t be challenged. Where they can demonstrate their own eco-systems. And where everything can be stage-managed and controlled. Because, when they don’t do that = as this year has again shown, things can and do go wrong.

Those mistakes are far more manageable and a lot less glaring when the herd of journos is on the way to another of your brand’s keynotes rather than heading off to see a sex robot redefine the phrase non-erotic with a mechanical – in all senses of the word – striptease. And the last thing your brand wants to be is further down the pole than a robo-stripper, a fate that befell LG at when its home controlling robot Cloi gave up halfway.

LG’s

Last week Kulturpop’s Matt Armitage was happy. It was the first week of the year and his mince pie sugar rush had sustained him into the New Year. This week he wants to get serious and tell the tech industry what we expect of it in 2018. It’s time to Mattsplain.

It’s Friday. It’s 2018. It’s time to Mattsplain. Today Kulturpop’s Matt Armitage is here to tell us why we’ve got reason to be cheerful in the year ahead.

Coming soon. M.EX. A show about technology. Culture. And you.

For part 1 of this podcast, click the following link:https://www.bfm.my/ent-tt-mattsplained-things-ive-learned-in-2017-part-1-matt-armitage-kulturpopLast week we heard about the things that made Kulturpop’s Matt Armitage sad in 2017. This week he’s promised we’ll all be happy. It’s part 2 of 2017, Mattsplained.

As we're approaching to the end of 2017, Kulturpop's Matt Armitage decided to share some of his learnings throughout the year. From the doom and gloom to the happy happy joy joy, we dive into Matt's mind about what has changed for him in 2017 and what he has learned this year. 
For part 2 of this podcast, click the following link:https://www.bfm.my/ent-tt-mattsplained-things-ive-learned-in-2017-part-2-matt-armitage-kulturpop

With the digital age we live in today, how does trust play a role in all this? Matt Armitage from Kulturpop explores the idea of how there is a new emerging framework for trust, as we place more and more trust in machines and less in human individuals.

Is it better to give or to receive? Kulturpop’s Matt Armitage believes that the best scenario is for you to give and him to receive. Anything else, apparently, is a waste of his time. Which means that his picks for Xmas are probably going to be little more than his own personal shopping list. I hate to say this, but it’s Xmas, Mattsplained.

After last week’s 7 Signs of Digital Happiness, Matt Armitage has decided he’s the Audio Buzzfeed. As the year comes to a close and we start to gaze morosely at the miasma of 2018, we’re looking at the next big thing, Mattsplained.

Ever wondered how he keeps the smile on his face and the skip in his step? Kulturpop’s Matt Armitage follows a plan. And it’s all his own. It’s digital happiness, Mattsplained.