For the past few years, members of the New Marketing Labs team have been attending CES in Las Vegas, even before our inception, to network with visionaries, bloggers and help some of the largest brands understand the influence of social media to build and expand their community and digital presence.   

This year is no different as Colin Bower, Chris Brogan, Justin Levy, and Nick Saber head to the annual winter festival in the desert.  There is some buzz within the blogger and online community about the big announcements and happenings this year - but it was only recently that bloggers first came en masse to CES. 

Before 2006, there were a few editorial bloggers, consisting mostly as parts of larger traditional media outlets.  Then came the Blogger Lounge & Blog Haus and suddenly being a blogger was cooler than working with Walt Mossberg & the New York Times.


In 2007, the game changed with social networks becoming more mainstream and with Twitter recently launched.  Bloggers were given front row seats to major keynotes and full show access with backstage passes.   Consumers and marketers didn't have to wait for breaking news updates from CNN, Ziff-Davis publications or broadcast news.   Access was immediate and so was the live transmission of what and who was of interest from the CES convention halls and streets of Sin City.   The people became the story and it has evolved today to where the storytellers are as much of the news as the latest tech gadgets & gizmos being promoted.   

There was concern, as with many major conferences, that live streaming and virtual coverage would diminish the value of such mega events.   Nothing could be further from the truth.  As with TED, SXSW, E3 and so many other major shows - the greater the visibility, the show evolved with greater cross awareness, more stories and impact.  The shows, the content and the connections grew along with the news.

This year, if you want to keep up with news, trends and stories coming out of CES check out the following outlets to see how the social media community is discovering and sharing the experience.

• For real time conversations follow #CES on Twitter
• Recent CES photos posted to Flickr
  


There will inevitably be A LOT of buzz in the technology world over the next several days.  Keep up with the blog posts as they fly in around these key expected themes for CES 2010:

• The expected announcement of the Google Phone - though this is not taking place at CES there will be incredible buzz about it there.
  
• Home Theater goes 3D at CES 
• Notebooks and Tablet News at CES
• Car technology gets smarter at CES
• Consumer tech going green at CES
  
  

 And if you are making the trek to CES this year be sure to check out Jeff Pulver's Social Media Jungle - a full event devoted to social media.  Justin will be speaking at this event so if you're there, make sure you stop by and say hi to him.

If looking for any of the official CES parties during the week in Vegas, check out the constantly updated CES Party List. 

Whatever your interests surrounding CES this year, whether in Vegas or experiencing it virtually, be sure to join share your thoughts, create content (#CES) and keep the conversation going.  No doubt, you'll be helping direct the focus and influence of not only this week's CES but future years to come as well.

Photo Credit: Justin Levy