At last year's CES, the Bloghaus was one of the show's highlights. As with most people, my room sucked, so it provided me with a great place to get online, work, catch up with friends, meet new people, and just hang out after a long day. The food was free, the booze was plentiful, the accommodations were great, and the camaraderie was amazing. This year I had high hopes for the Bloghaus again, but I have to admit things weren't as great as last year. The room was the same (though better equipped) and the blogger guest list was still impressive, but things had changed. This year the innocence was gone. I am not one to scoff at free food or bandwidth, and I greatly appreciate the Bloghaus accommodating me, but some things have to reexamined. For example, while working (with my head down at my laptop, in the back room) I was constantly being interrupted by people pitching me. I'm not talking about bloggers asking me to check out their sites, these were PR people who were there to talk about their products. One guy was pitching a 3D browser and another asked me if I would be interested in writing about children's toys and then quickly left when I declined. The latter's companion asked me who I was with (who I was writing for) and after I told him he just turned around and walked away without answering me when I returned the question. I was also, kicked out of the back room so a video could be filmed there (this I didn't mind until I saw that it was for this video). I was also asked a number of times if I wanted to stop working and listen to a pitch about XStreamHD. So what it comes down to is if you want the food and pipes, you have to put up with a few interruptions. I wouldn't really mind this if it didn't defeat the entire purpose of the Bloghaus. Wasn't this supposed to be a place for bloggers to hang out and write? I don't mind if vloggers, writers, editors, reporters (etc.) are there, in fact I would encourage it, but why the PR people? I realize that Seagate sponsored the party, and I am OK with that- this year I did not see any Seagate people, but last year they were extremely hospitable, as well as respectful and fun to be around. I gladly heard about their Free Agent drives and then we hung out and talked afterwards. This year it seemed like a considerable number of the people there, especially on Wednesday night, were just observing the bloggers and trying to finish up the job they had started on the show floor. So don't get me wrong, I think the Bloghas is a great idea and I'd be happy to go back next year, but let's drop the pretenses. If you need to use the space to film some video, that's cool, just tell the people to take it easy on the pitching. This year there seemed to be a lot less people there and a lot of my favorite attendees were nowhere to be seen. I don't know if this is all related or not, but 2008 was a step back from 2007. Hopefully next year will focus on the blogging and leave the marketing in the convention center. Obviously most of the blame here does not fall with the people who ran the Bloghaus, but rather the people doing the pitching. I feel like I have read a 100 posts on "how to pitch to bloggers" and catching them unawares while they are letting off some steam or writing in a casual co-working environment is the absolute worst time to approach someone. Last year I met a number people at the Bloghaus who are now good friends, and number more who are now great business connections, this year I hung out with a few close friends and I knew that anyone who interrupted us was there to sell us something. As for why the Bloghaus will be back next year, you can take this either of two ways- maybe corporate interests have their hooks in it or maybe it's just too good of an atmosphere and too good of an idea to drop. You can take it to mean either, but I'll give it another shot and see who I meet. I wouldn't want a few bad experiences to ruin an otherwise great event but a few people really rubbed me the wrong way this year and it was overwhelmingly clear who belonged and who didn't.