Bay Area Gadgets is pleased to launch its Technology Corner column for All Reasons Moving. Many of you already receive my own newsletter so the content for here will be unique. I’ll provide common sense information about the technology we use and will purchase from Home Office to Home Entertainment to Mobile Phones and Music Devices. Don’t expect to find this information from CNET or the blue shirts at Best Buy.
Let’s roll! The shopping scene continues to shrink in the valley giving use less opportunity to see a wide variety of products. Circuit City died as I predicted in 2008. Magnolia Audio Video closed half its locations. Anderson’s TV has whacked 50% of their stores due to high overhead. Finally, Ultimate Video, previously with 4 local stores, is down to one. What’s this mean? It’s ugly if you enjoy a professional shopping environment with informed staff. These doomed retailer’s products will now be found in Fry’s and Wal-Mart. That’s right; Wal-Mart is going upscale in its electronic offerings taking on Best Buy in targeted markets. The other outcome is that you won’t find many of the most innovative products in stores. This means fewer opportunities to squeeze the digital tomatoes, i.e. cameras, iPod accessories, audio equipment, entertainment furniture, and more.
To minimize the pain from not being able to see product in the stores, I have created a variety of “Useful Links” at Bay Area Gadgets These go well beyond the usual suspects like Consumer Reports and CNET. There are specialty sites which cover everything new in Digital Cameras, laptops, mobile phones and more. The current crop creamers are listed, and more will be added as they emerge. One example is dcviews. It consolidates every press release and camera review into a single portal. It’s a big time saver.
Yes, it’s a brave new digital world, but my job is to report on all things digital. Expect a series of shorter, punchy article in upcoming posts. Feel free email me we with comments or questions at [email protected] You may be the focus of my next post.