Every year at CES I always hear about some product or company being called the winner. Whether it be a 3D printer that prints whatever you throw it’s way or a phone so thin you could slice bread with it, something is always crowned a winner. How can this be? CES was first held in 1967 as an electronics trade show. You know, the kind of place where big named companies (and small alike) gathered from the world over to display theoretical and no-fiction goods that would be released to the general public with in the coming years. This is still true today, but how did the notion of winning CES come about?

Honestly, there is no true origin of this. try searching Google for it. Other than Google recently activating a new search feature ruining the whole ease and experience, you won’t get anything that will answer the nagging question. Media reporters (yes I’m talking about you writers at big tech blogs such as Engadget and SlashGear) are constantly pitting products against each other in endless benchmarks and comparisons matched up with reviews to get products to to trump each other which is fine. But is it necessary to call whatever you find best at the show THE winner?

I personally like what CNET does. At the end of every CES they have an awards show of sorts where they have several products in multiple categories in which they choose the best in each. This way helps consumers decide on which products to purchase once they hit market. Sure this may make other companies and their products not look so great, but isn’t that how it is anyway in the real world?

What I’m just trying to say is that people need to just take a step back and see the true purpose of CES. It’s a venue to show off the next generation in tech, not to stack companies like a house of cards to show the “winner” off at the top. Because just like that house of cards, CES could have it’s true meaning collapse.