CNET ZW Data Action Technologies Inc

CNET (www.cnet.com), the trusted, unbiased resource dedicated to helping consumers buy and use personal technology, and a property of CNET Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq:CNET), today announced it has partnered with three premier design firms to bring its users' ultimate dream gadgets to life. As part of its 10-year anniversary celebration, CNET invited its community of technology enthusiasts to sound-off on the products they wanted to see brought to market within the next couple of years. The resulting ideas, which can be found at http://ten.cnet.com, offer manufacturers insight on the future technology gadgets, features and functionality CNET tech enthusiast consumer audience wants most. "By tapping into CNET's passionate audience, we were able to collect the type of insight and information that vendors typically gather through expensive, in-depth focus groups," said Candice Meyers, senior vice president of CNET. "The resulting concepts, in addition to being fascinating in their own right, provide valuable insight for the consumer electronics industry as to what consumers are likely to expect and look for in the coming months and years." Known for developing innovative and ground-breaking products, three design firms -- Eight, Inc. (www.eightinc.com), frog design (www.frogdesign.com), and Speck Design (www.speckdesign.com) -- collaborated with CNET to create the conceptual designs that are now demonstrated as part of the feature. After CNET's expert editors selected the three top gadget ideas from more than 3,000 community forum postings -- based on the amount of buzz they created and how useful, practical, and realistic the product was deemed to be -- the design firms then set to work to bring each gadget to life. "As a consulting firm we've used conceptual techniques to create experiences for what have become world renown products, such as the Apple Macintosh and more recently the Yahoo! Music Player," said Mick Malisic, Director of Marketing at frog design. "We work with Fortune 50 companies daily to help them redefine markets through various forms of conceptual development, so when CNET approached us with this idea, we were excited for the opportunity to have complete creative freedom to bring the ultimate dream gadget to life." To solicit ideas, CNET asked its users to share their opinions in a community forum beginning last June. Thousands of entries were submitted, and millions of people shared their opinions on what they believed were the best and worst ideas. The three most popular ideas submitted by users include: -- "iTunes Vending Machine," designed by Speck Designs. The user who submitted this dream gadget idea wanted the convenience of downloading music files on-the-go at any location. -- "Motorola One," designed by frog design. The user who submitted this all-in-one product dream gadget idea wanted 40-hour talk time, ability to play MP3 files, a 3 mega-pixel camera, and many more features. -- "Phonezilla," designed by eight, Inc. The user who submitted this ultimate phone/PDA dream gadget idea requested a terabyte or more of flash memory. About CNET CNET (www.cnet.com), a property of CNET Networks, Inc., is dedicated to helping people buy and use personal technology to enhance and enrich their lives. CNET's award winning editorial staff reviews thousands of products each year, providing expert and unbiased advice on what products to buy. The site also offers help and how-to features enhanced with video content that visually shows consumers how to get the most out of technology once they own it. And, with an extensive directory of more than 400,000 products and price comparisons, CNET also gives consumers the most up-to-date and efficient shopping resource on the Web. About CNET Networks, Inc. CNET Networks, Inc. is a worldwide media company and creator of content environments for the interactive age. CNET Networks takes pride in being "a different kind of media company," creating richer, deeper interactive experiences by combining the wisdom and passion of users, marketers and its own expert editors. CNET Networks' leading brands -- such as CNET, GameSpot, MP3.com, Webshots, and ZDNet -- focus on the personal technology, entertainment, and business technology categories. The company has a strong presence in the US, Asia and Europe.