Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Announcement Season

This was one the longest news holes in recent memory. In the United States, people’s attention was distracted by the Olympics, the political conventions, hurricanes, the banking crisis, the presidential election season, and the holidays, in rapid succession. It was a tough time for those who had something new to announce, because it was hard to squeeze your announcement in amid all the noise.

That’s why I expect to see a flurry of new products and other announcements this month as people who saved their announcements finally get them out. Already I’ve seen more than a month’s worth of new technology. One example is a cord that lets you plug an ordinary guitar directly into an ordinary computer. It’s nothing earth-shattering, but then again, if you had a big announcement that would surprise everyone you could make it any day you chose. It is the smaller stuff that could get lost on a busier day that we’re likely to be seeing more of in the coming weeks.