Broaden the Coverage?

One of the many common themes coming from the great comments you all are leaving is in the area of broadening the content coverage. I’ll address other general themes like usage scenarios with the devices we are using / testing, design layout, etc in future posts.

First area – broadening coverage: some want us to build on the “mobile” aspect of our name and include coverage beyond Tablet PCs, UMPCs, etc. Others were looking for more mobile coverage out of CES than the extensive Tablet and UMPC coverage we brought you.

This is an issue we have been discussing for quite awhile as a team – broadening coverage, defining that coverage, staying true to our original base build on Tablet PC, etc. It is true, the mobile world is much bigger than Tablet PC and natural human interface technologies.

These are some practical questions / thoughts I have in relation to broadening coverage and I’d love your feedback:

• Are you looking for more mobile phone hardware /  software / usage coverage, along the lines of iPhone, Smart phones, Windows Mobile phones, etc? We’ve touched on those subjects in the past, but they have never been a focus of ours.
• Should we look at covering all mobile computers like the MacBook, Sony Vaio TZ, Dell ultraportables, etc? We’ve been testing this with the Eee PC, and everyone seems to like that. How do you feel about Apple coverage? I’m a big Apple fan, use MacBook, iPhone, etc. As an example, being able to run Vista and OS X on a MacBook has tremendous mobile benefits, especially when .mac syncing is working behind the scenes to tie back to a iMac. Throw in a Wacom 12WX Digitizer and you have Vista tablet functionality running on a MacBook.
• Define mobile gadgets – what are you really looking for there? To be honest, I don’t want GBM to become another gadget site that loses its focus. Embracing all kinds of mobile gadgets scares the heck out of me. However, I am hearing what you are saying.
• By broadening out to more mobile coverage, will our coverage become too watered down and lose the uniqueness that GBM currently brings to the table?
• Our focus to date has been on the intersection between mobile computing and natural interface technologies like ink, touch, handwriting, speech, etc. Can we still do that and broaden in to other mobile areas? Maybe.

Keep talking. This is good stuff.