Just wanted to take a second to thank you all for reading, watching, commenting, and emailing on all we do here at PhoneDog. It goes without saying that without you the readers there'd be no PhoneDog and I wouldn't be readying myself for another exciting, ridiculous, fun, and utterly exhausting week at a trade show. So while I'm still home in Northern California, feeling healthy and rested and enjoying the fresh air, I just wanted to say thanks. By the time Friday rolls around and I've spent four nights on the Vegas Strip, I might not be feeling so thankful ;^)
In all seriousness, the cell phone industry is big business and only getting bigger as the lines between cell phone carriers and internet service providers and multimedia content providers blur, and as the lines between "phones" and "mobile computers" blur even further. But it's also lots of fun getting to make a living keeping tabs on the industry, writing and making videos about it, and chatting with you all via Email, forum posts, and YouTube comments.
Come Monday I'll leave Oakland, Doug will leave Brooklyn, and Courtney will leave L.A., and we'll all converge upon one of the weirdest places you can imagine for a week's worth of gadget-induced mayhem (unless you've been to Vegas for a show or conference of some sort, it's hard to really imagine it). Trade shows are fun, but they're nuts too - forget about sunlight, peace and quiet, or time to think, 'cause CTIA and CES and all of the other shows are all about long days spent entirely surrounded by thousands of people and the biggest, shiniest, loudest, most-blinking-est things they can dream up to hawk their wares. It's an experience, that's for sure.
Combine days on the football fields-big show floor with press lunches and dinners fueled by more blinking gadgets and executives giving speeches and lots of food and drink ... and combine that with evening PR events and parties fueled by way too much boozing and shmoozing and random celebrity appearances ... add to that an unhealthy dose of maybe four hours of sleep each night in a hotel room and obscene amounts of caffeine the next day to get you ready to do it again ... times four days and four nights ... and you've got yourself a trade show. Unless it's in Vegas, that is. Then you'll want to double the unhealthy, over stimulating parts and cut the sleep in half. And make sure you find time for some gambling and at least one awesome meal you can't really afford.
But I'm not complaining. It's great fun, and most of the people I get to work with at these things are good people who make it all the more fun. And, of course, there are all of the crazy new phones and gadgets to check out and report back to you on. So thanks for making it all possible, ladies and gentlemen ... Come back often this week and we'll do our best to make you feel like you're right there with us. Get yourself a cold beverage and open an online poker game in another browser window while you watch our coverage, and it might just be the closest you'll get to CTIA Las Vegas without actually being there.
But if you are there and you see us, be sure to say Hi, alright?
