One of the new things at CES this year affecting those of us who descend on Vegas to cover the show for our readers is that the show has added a Blogger designation in addition to the Press designation.  Those of us who have come in years past were always considered to be Press which provides access to some great facilities on-site at the show to make it easier for us to get timely information for our readers.  This year the new Blogger designation provides access to special facilities for bloggers but restricts those so designated from the Press facilities and it’s not clear to anyone how this will affect the individual’s coverage.  Those designated as Bloggers applied for press credentials as in years past yet were seemingly arbitrarily assigned the Blogger badges in return.  Kevin and I both were reclassified this year as Bloggers and when I arrived at the convention center yesterday to pick up my "Blogger" credentials I wanted to know why it changed.  A lot of "Bloggers" are asking that same question so I thought I’d share what I found out.  Those of you not here in Vegas might want to pass this post over.

The first indication I had yesterday that the new Blogger status might not be desirable was when I ran into a complete inability to pick up my Blogger credentials at the main convention center.  Every location I went to did not have any Blogger kits to pass out and so I asked show officials why I had been reclassified as a Blogger even though I had been Press in multiple years past.  I explained that yes I do blog but also freelance write for mainstream media and felt that should qualify me as a bona fide press representative.  After a lengthy discussion I was sent to the Press Room in the South Hall of the convention center to get an explanation.  This was difficult because to do so I needed to enter the Press Room, which I couldn’t do as I was denied access by the gatekeepers due to only having a Blogger badge.  This was an indication to me of the problem that those designated as Bloggers will run into during the course of the show as I had feared.

The show folk sent out a manager of the registration office with whom I had a lengthy conversation about this new classification and how I didn’t understand how they arbitrarily were deciding that Press attendees of past years would now be Bloggers and how that might adversely affect their coverage of the show.  He (name withheld at his request) admitted that might be the case that Bloggers cannot access areas and events categorized as "press only".  I made my case for why I thought I should still be a Press representative and the manager got online with me and once I showed him some of my work that has been done for mainstream media he agreed I should still have Press credentials and I was converted over from Blogger.  So I am now a full Press attendee and have recommended to Kevin that when he arrives today he should attempt to get his status converted back to Press too.  Hopefully they’ll do it for him with no problems, after all he writes for the New York Times!

I have seen that there is no rhyme nor reason behind who gets tagged with the new Blogger credentials and who doesn’t, in some cases representatives from the same web site have mixed credentials.  I expect this will become a real mess as the show proper gets opened tomorrow but I hope not. Gizmodo has written about how their team has mixed badges but have convinced themselves that Blogger status is better as Press cannot get into the blogger facilities at the convention center.  Hey, that’s what the BlogHaus is for.  It was made clear to me by show personnel that events tagged as "press only" will not be available to those with Blogger badges.