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Loading ...The CES 2010 edition of Last Gadget is heading down the home stretch, and, if the Ballot Box vote is any indication, the interest in our semifinalists is soaring - so much so that we had to wonder if someone was attempting to game the system.
As of Dec. 29, the top contender among the 25 selected by our experts to be in the Ballot Box race had 146,000 votes - more than 122,000 votes more than the its nearest competitor, the Entourage Edge and even farther ahead of the Motorola DROID, the QUE proReader, and the Ooma Telo.
Does that huge margin give you pause? Well, it should. Yep, those results are at least somewhat questionable - although not entirely illegitimate.
The Ballot Box is not a scientific poll. Nor is it a legally binding vote. We’d all be voting for government officials from the comfort or our PCs and PJs if such were the case. A Ballot Box such as the one we use was created to gauge broad public sentiment - and in our specific instance a way to give those who won’t be going to CES 2010 a say about what products truly deserve the limelight. It’s but one means of expression for you, right along with the ratings and commenting systems built into the site.
As implemented the Ballot Box keeps true to one of the most distinguishing hallmarks of Last Gadget Standing: Our host, Robin Raskin, created Last Gadget Standing explicitly for the purpose of giving actual and potential buyers a say, instead of having the tech editors or experts serve as the sole arbiters of legitimacy. It actually presaged the social media revolution that now makes everyone a publisher, not just the Rupert Murdoch’s of the world.
The Ballot Box is just as imperfect as the method by which the LGS winners have been proclaimed at the past eight Consumer Electronics Shows - by the measuring, in decibels, of applause for a particular product.
But imperfect as they are, Last Gadget Standing has over the years anointed products that went on to being actual marketplace winners, as Robin points out in her most recent retrospective.
In the last 24 hours it was brought to our attention that our first-place contender, the SHOWWX Laser Pico Projector from Microvision was benefiting from an effort to game the vote. A message thread on Yahoo! Finance, where people follow the publicly held Microvision, offered instructions on how to cast more than the allotted 25 votes.
A call to the folks at Microvision, a public company, indicates that they are not to blame. In fact, they’ve encouraged folks to honor the system in a blog post of their own.
In fact, our look into the voting records indicates that the Pico Projector would have established a lead without any rigging. But, that’s the Internet, yes? You take the bad with the good.
Fortunately, we’ve put a few safeguards in place that allow us to reasonably identify and disqualify a voting instance that clearly exceeds the limit. We’re in the process of verifying the votes using these safeguards; we’ll also apply this filter to all the products in the vote.
One of the signs of a mature business is that you’re held to a high level of scrutiny. In that regard, we’re glad to have this issue on our hands. But it’s most important to us that we communicate as honestly and as often as it takes. We’re on the case and we’ll continue to post regular updates on the vote, the soon-to-be announced Top 10 finalists, and the ultimate winners when that time comes.
