Taking measure of the market frenzy surrounding tablet computing devices, the Consumer Electronics Association, parent company of the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, is sponsoring CleanSlate 2011, a one-day conference to be held July 19 in New York City, focused solely on the impact of tablet computing devices on media consumption and on the advertising market.
CleanSlate 2011 is a B2B conference that will be held at the Westin New York Times Square Hotel. Among the companies that will be participating are The Daily, News Corps' iPad digital newspaper, HarperCollins, Meredith National Media Group, Major League Baseball Advanced Media and others. CEA chief economist Shawn DuBravac and the Yankee Group’s Gigi Wang, will kickoff the one-day event with keynote presentations on “The State of the Tablet Economy.”
The event will feature presentations on identifying tablet users and how they use it; integrating digital and text, survey new advertising paradigms and more. And while the event will principally focus on tablets in relationship to broadcast media, magazines and newspaper publishing, Corinne Helman, v-p digital publishing and business development at HarperCollins Childrens, will contribute to a panel on monetization strategies in the afternoon.
Although the tablet computing market essentially did not exist before the release of the iPad in April 2010, that device’s impact on consumers—and the subsequent rush of Apple competitors to get their own devices to market—has been extraordinary. Indeed some computer experts are beginning to claim that the popularity and utility of the iPad and other tablets are steering consumers away from purchasing conventional personal computers.
Earlier this year Forrester consumer product senior analyst Sarah Rotman Epps called tablets “lifestyle devices” that appeal to consumers much like the iPhone and iPod. Forrester projects tablet sales will double to more than 24 million units this year and “the lion's share will be iPads, despite many would-be competitors," Epps said. Apple has sold more than 15 million iPads since 2010 and claims about 80% of the tablet market. Some observers are starting to say that the so-called tablet marketplace is essentially an iPad marketplace.
“That’s certainly one of the issues we expect our speakers to explore,” said Karen Healy, managing partner at On Track Communications, which is producing the CleanSlate 2011 event. “The tablet marketplace is exploding and users can do more and more kinds of work on them. I don’t carry my own PC around much anymore.”
Liz Schimel, executive v-p and chief digital officer at Meredith National Media Group, said her company has released three iPad apps so far this year. Schimel, who will also participate in the monetization strategies panel, said that while the tablet market is indeed exploding, “we’re still in the early stages,” and said, “CleanSlate 2011 is an event that promises to go beyond the industry headlines and focuses on how progressive companies are driving new revenue and profits in the Tablet marketplace.”
