CES 2012

CES 2012 is over and, for those of you unfamiliar with it, there were a few surprises. Honestly, these surprises weren't technological; Smart TVs have been predicted by analysts for quite a while (although Google TV failed), OLED has been around since 2004 but never really mass-produced, a plethora of iPhone and iPad accessories were on display, and the Keynotes were lackluster. Why, then, was this show surprising?

Freemium

Freemium has been in the software industry since the 80s, but was only recently coined (mid-2000s). Back when it came out, trial and "lite" versions of software were distributed, on floppies and other media, to businesses. In the 90s, the model extended to personal software as well. Now, it's ubiquitous on every App store. Having said that, freemium has always been around in one way or the other; you wouldn't buy a car without a test drive and people buying new technologies have always had the need to see it in action. For instance, before trading a chunk of meat for a bow and arrow, a person had to know what it did and how well—that's why the telephone had such slow adoption from when it was introduced.