Okay.. you'd think I'd be posting on the Macworld announcements but I wanna take some time to gather my thoughts on that one.. so lets back up a little bit to CES. What did I see as the storylines coming out of this year's show? Let's take a look.

- Next generation DVD is in serious trouble. If any of you followed BetaNews' coverage during CES, you may have noticed we kind of went back and forth between Blu-ray and HD DVD, and it became clear that there is practically NO chance of any truce, and such a fundemental difference in philosophy that this will be an all out battle to the death. I'm sorry Blu-ray folks, but $1,300-1,800 for a player is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. I don't care if the format has more industry support or not... not even early adopters are going to pay as much as four times over a competiting format even if there is more content. HD DVD's price point of $499 is very reasonable and will appeal to a much broader segment. I find it odd that so many companies are supporting a company's proprietary format who has so far failed in every single format launch it has undertaken.. Betamax, Mini-Disc anyone? Sony has proven it is worse than Apple when it comes to compromise. Worse yet, the company thinks the "format war" will be over in months.. fat chance is what I say. This could go on for years.... enough time for a better solution to come along.
- Portable media centers are the way to go. Gotta hand it to Apple, they found a way to bring the video market back to life. Over the next few months, we're going to see a ton of PMCs on the market. Video is the new MP3. Look at Google, they're even getting into the act.
- Microsoft's Changing Business. It was all over their booth at CES.. Windows Live Expo (Fremont - their Craiglist-like app), Messenger, Mail, Spaces, the return of SPOT... over the next few months we are going to see MS transform itself into a services company much more than a software company. It shows you the power of this Web 2.0 movement... it's all about personalization, baby. By the time Vista hits the street... it will be less about the OS itself, and more about the vast array of services surrounding it. I say good. Microsoft has always seemed to do better with services, go figure.
- CES is becoming too confusing. Om Malik pointed this out in a post over on GigaOm -- there is just too much clutter at CES. No offense to the small companies trying to get noticed at shows like this... but there is just too much junk at these shows. Om says, "Is it me, or did anyone else notice that the show put confusion and convergence before consumer convenience, the very reason gizmos sell?" Amen to that. The show really does need to shrink. And also, be a lot better organized. There is no rhyme or reason it seemed to how things were laid out. While yes, the central hall is going to be a mish-mash of a lot of items since those are the big $$$ booths, the various other sections should be split up into various industries. Its likely some good products are being overlooked, just because people don't know where to find them. And whats with keynoters (minus Billy G of course, hes a staple of CES) not having anything to do with CE for the most part??????
- Apple's influence. It was all over CES. Creative's Zen Vision:M/ZenCast? iPod/iTunes. The sheer amound of iPod accessory vendors all over the show. Ina Fried from CNET even mentioned how much the Vista Photo Gallery now looks like iPhoto. Apple haters, I'm sorry. With now 83 percent of the legal music market, and 14 million iPods shipped last quarter, Steve Jobs and company is here to stay for a long long time.

Anyone else at the show? Paul, what did you think? (Lucky bastard's at Macworld, grr)