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Happy New Year! It’s January and that means one thing – time for some shiny new gadgets. CES is nearly upon us, the Nexus One is out already and Apple has already named the date for its latest unveiling later this month.

But with so much noise, the Apples and Microsofts of the world will be entering into vicious tech PR wars to secure those all important column inches (or web pages!).

John Martellaro, a former Apple marketing bloke, has given a glimpse into the way Apple handles the media before a big product launch, in light of the Wall Street Journal’s revelation about the iSlate this week:

Often Apple has a need to let information out, unofficially. The company has been doing that for years, and it helps preserve Apple’s consistent, official reputation for never talking about unreleased products. I know, because when I was a Senior Marketing Manager at Apple, I was instructed to do some controlled leaks.

The way it works is that a senior exec will come in and say, “We need to release this specific information. John, do you have a trusted friend at a major outlet? If so, call him/her and have a conversation. Idly mention this information and suggest that if it were published, that would be nice. No e-mails!”

The communication is always done in person or on the phone. Never via e-mail. That’s so that if there’s ever any dispute about what transpired, there’s no paper trail to contradict either party’s version of the story. Both sides can maintain plausible deniability and simply claim a misunderstanding. That protects Apple and the publication.

In the case of yesterday’s story, Walt Mossberg was bypassed so that Mr. Mossberg would remain above the fray, above reproach. Also, two journalists at the WSJ were involved. That way, each one could point the finger at the other and claim, “I thought he told me to run with this story! Sorry.”Finally, the story was posted online late Monday, eastern time, so no one could ever suggest there was any attempt to manipulate the stock market.The net result is that Apple gets the desired information published by a major Wall Street news outlet, but can always claim, if required, it was all an editorial misunderstanding. The WSJ is protected as well.

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One of great things about technology is that it never stands still. There is always something new, something different to try out. Some make it, others don’t.

One new shiny piece of tech that seems set to become the new darling of the industry is music service Spotify.

If you have tried it already here is a brief catch-up:

- Spotify is an application that you download to either Mac or PC (iPhone et. al. rumoured to be along soon)

- It allows you to instantly stream specific tracks or albums (a bit like Last.fm) for free, from its fairly big (and growing) library

- You can’t download the music but you can set up playlists and share these (and/or individual tracks) with friends, family and colleagues

Its like the iTunes store, but free (and without the ability to transfer to portable devices, yet). The only catch? Every 20 minutes it plays you a short advert. It’s like radio but with less ads and only with the tracks you want/choose.

A Swedish startup, the service is only available in western Europe (which is probably why publicity has been slightly slower), but expect other countries to be included soon (although royalty deals etc. make this process complicated).

Spotify makes money through the adverts and through it premium, no-ad version at £9.99 per month.

A new music model

Spotify heralds in a new way for consumption of music and media (in an interview on Channel 4 this weekend, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, suggested that streaming films in the same way was not out of the question). This advertising-supported model is obviously not new, and Ek has been quick to say that he feels the service is complementary rather than competitive with services like iTunes.

Time will tell.

For me, Spotify’s success is down to the fact that it is so easy to use. Peer-to-peer services have always been available, but they have been cumbersome (and illegal) and this has limited adoption.

It just goes to show, when technology is easy-to-use and fulfils a need or desire, you have a winning formula.

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Various internet-based pundits have been banging on about the death of the plasma screen TV for years now, but with the dreaded RECESSION (dum dum duuuuuuuuum) making its effects felt and Pioneer announcing its withdrawal from the flatscreen market could this really be it?

Faced with shrinking consumer demand and mounting panel production costs, Pioneer is bowing out to focus on car electronics and audio products. This is emblematic of the pickle the wider TV industry has got itself into. With low-end LCD screens pushing television prices ever downwards, the enticingly huge screen sizes and low price tags are too much to resist for a penny-pinching public.  Meanwhile manufacturers’ margins are slimmer than an OLED screen. And when cash is sparse, who is seriously going to consider spending literally thousands of pounds on a plasma screen TV and the subsequent electricity bills?

But technology journalists the web over are lamenting the fickle public’s purse strings for bringing about the demise of a TV manufacturer that is widely regarded as one of the best in the television making biz. It’s like Primark flourishing whilst French Connection goes under; we’re all opting for quantity over quality.

Never fear, picture quality fans, with HD broadcasting looking set to rise and OLED TVs glimmering tantalisingly on the consumer horizon, even if plasma screens do go the way of HD DVD, it could just be natural selection at work.

All the talk of cut backs, redundancies, credit crunches and ‘the current economic climate’ provide such an obvious and easy PR hook that we sometimes forget the realities behind the tired clichés – especially as the PR industry remains largely buoyant (touch wood).

A rather average Friday afternoon was rocked by this Tweet and post – change is afoot at UK media company, Shiny Media. Some of their blogs are among my favourite work and non-work sites, so I was sad to hear that co-founder, editorial director and Twitter-pal Katie Lee will be departing along with a number of other staff members. These aren’t just statistics, they are friendly, enthusiastic (and frequently hilarious) journalist-bloggers I have either met or conversed with via the magic of Twitter.

Personal feelings aside, Shiny’s fortunes have been the subject of mass internet debate before. Second-of-three co-founders Ashely Norris’s blog post on the subject spawned a hailstorm of comments some months ago, and raises questions about online publishing in the UK. Such a great group of together, switched-on people run and maintain Shiny’s group of sites, but it seems to have been proven that behind that you need the hard-heart of a business man and a grey-suited number cruncher to keep an online publishing company going.

But if streamlining the operation (sorry, sometimes we just can’t help that PR-speak) means that the excellent sites with honest, approachable voices can continue slicing through the PR spiel and offering entertaining, impartial advice on gadgets, fashion, music, crafts, green living and so on then it’s a necessary evil.

But I do wish shinykatie, radioedit, MyChemToilet and Luciosos all the best for the future. Give them a job, yeah?

There’s nothing like a new gadget to wipe away those January-blues and so its with great excitement (and slight jealousy of those who attend) that I always look forward to the tech-tastic first week of the New Year that brings Macworld and CES. [Disclosure: I'm a bit of an Apple fanboy]

Part 1 was always going to be overshadowed by (the lack of) a certain Mr Jobs and his death hormone rumours reports. And to be honest, I’m not surprised he stayed away as Macworld 2009 won’t really be remembered for anything in particular [although DRM-free music will have quite an effect on the music industry], even if previous years had set a high-precedent.

So…it wasn’t the keynote itself that was interesting me, it was what the announcement did to Twitter.

Twitter has continued to draw attention over the Christmas period with yet more celebrity additions and a fair amount of national media exposure [albeit mainly written by journos who really don't understand what it is all about and driven by the aforementioned celebrity interest].

And so, my not-particularly-ground-breaking/jumping-on-the-bandwagon prediction is that 2009 will see Twitter hitting the mainstream or reaching ‘tipping point’ as us digital/marketing-types prefer to say.

But it wont get there if what happened last night continues.

From the start of Macworld, Twitter started only showing comments that were posted 15 minutes before. Not good. Ok, ok, to be fair, it didn’t just collapse as it probably would’ve this time last year. But it creaked, and this creaking went on for some time.

Now, us techy, early-adopters tolerate this (and we’ve tolerated Twitter more than most) but the general populus wont.

And, at the end of the day, live community events like a Macworld keynote are exactly where a network like Twitter should come into its own. It is where it should shine. Having a undercurrent of comment and dialogue on Twitter whilst following the live event is what gives that added dimension.

So here’s to Mr Ballmer and CES. And here’s to a good year for Twitter. Let’s just hope they don’t follow the damp-squib precedent set by Macworld 09.