If your entire Black Friday strategy involves stopping by the mall on the day after Thanksgiving, you might want to check out Retrevo’s guide to Black Friday buying. Not only do the Retrevo folks follow consumer electronics obsessively, they track pricing, availability and demand - you know, all the important information that’s a pain to hunt down. The guide includes top deals in different categories as well as some common sense tips for how to get what you want at the start of the holiday season while forking over the least amount of cash. One of my takeaways? Oddly, shopping at Staples looks like a really good bet for cheap CE stocking stuffers.

Not listed in the Black Friday guide, but equally important from my point of view, is Retrevo’s analysis of trends in CE pricing and demand. I discovered very recently that the site now has a feature called Retrevo Pulse, which aggregates CE buying data and shows real-time analytics. Way cool. For example, looking at recent trends for GPS units, it appears that prices have leveled off and demand is on the upswing after a four-month decline. I asked my contact at Retrevo for other recent findings, and here’s what he listed:

• Demand for TVs, digital cameras and MP3 players is turning up as we head into the holiday shopping season, but demand for cell phones is static, if not headed downward.
• Prices for digital cameras began falling in late October.
• Prices for MP3 players have been stable.
• Prices for cell phones are starting to creep up.

Talk about good intelligence for your seasonal CE shopping.

I’m a big fan of widgets - online, on TV, and on random gadgets that happen to be connected to the Internet - which is why news of a Widget Developer Challenge out of Motorola this week piqued my interest. (Keep in mind, I’m employed by Motorola, so take that as you will. But also know that I don’t work for the Mobile Devices business.)

Motorola is accepting widget entries for its Challenge in three basic areas: Best Widget in a Category (sports, weather, shopping, etc.), Best Local Content (based on geographic region), and Best Use of APIs. There’s also a grand prize being awarded for Best Overall Widget. Anyone can enter, and top prize gets $25,000.

Widgets submitted for the contest will be designed to operate on Motorola phones “equipped with a widgets framework.” The first of these phones is the new MOTO VE66, and Motorola promises more to come. But what’s really interesting here is something the folks over at AndroidGuys pointed out:

Typically, widgets operate the same, regardless of the operating system, so these entries should work on future Motorola phones based on Android, including the rumored “social networking” phone. Written in web standards like xhtml and css widgets can place frequently updated information directly onto a phone’s background, adding new content and features without firmware updates.

Want to do a little app dev for a future Android phone? This might be your chance. My single, solitary programming class in college puts me out of the running (not to mention the whole employer thing), but I’m happy to enjoy the widgety fruits of someone else’s labor.

Screenshots below of sample Motorola widgets provided by the MOTODEV team. They also have a Twitter stream.

I’m a well-documented Slacker junkie, but it’s only recently that I’ve started testing Slacker’s premium service on my first gen player. The subscription cost is just high enough to make me squeamish, but a free trial can’t be ignored. And, in true Slacker form, I’m finding the latest update to my music experience addictive.

A Slacker premium subscription gives you two critical features: no limit on skipping songs, and the ability to save songs you add to your favorite list. Both features have significantly improved my treadmill workouts. For example, I (embarrassingly) love the Today’s Hits station when I’m running, but sometimes I get a string of slow songs. Not ideal, but it’s no problem when I can skip as many songs as I like.

The song-saving feature is even more appealing. Would I ever have thought to download Jay-Z’s mash-up with Linkin Park’s song “Numb”? Nope. And yet now it’s on my go-to playlist for when my run starts to falter.

At $9.99 a month ($8.33/mo for six months; $7.50/mo for twelve months), the Slacker premium service edges into the category of a monthly expense I’d like to live without. But on the other hand, if I were to spend money on any subscription music service, this would be it. I’ve never even been tempted by subscription music offerings before. Slacker keeps moving digital music in the right direction.

It’s unclear how many listen to President George W. Bush’s weekly radio addresses. I suppose reporters tune in, because I occasionally catch an excerpt on NPR, but I’ve never heard of anyone setting up their own podcast feed from WhiteHouse.gov for the weekly words of wisdom. Will that change when President-Elect Barak Obama takes over?

According to The Washington Post, Obama appears to be planning a weekly video address to be distributed on the White House’s own YouTube Channel. During the campaigns both political parties used online video extensively, but we’ve had no real indications until now of how much the government-based “new media” rage would continue post election. A YouTube channel certainly makes sense, but I’m hesitant to get too giddy over the fact that the weekly address will utilize a new medium.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m entirely supportive of an Obama administration that uses YouTube. But I wonder how well the administration will be able to use it. Will the weekly addresses come across as oratory or conversation? Should the President really have an ongoing conversation with the public or should he be operating at an entirely different level? Will the YouTube channel have comments enabled? Will the adminstration ever respond to comments? Will other video sites or bloggers be able to distribute or embed segments? The questions go on and on, and I certainly don’t know the answers. But those answers will determine whether the new YouTube addresses get watched by the public during the next administration, or only by reporters and historians. After all, how much does it matter if you have a YouTube channel, or a blog, or a Twitter account? It’s what you have to say and how you say it that matters.

Pure Digital unveiled its anticipated Flip MinoHD today packaged with new FlipShare software for editing and sharing. We were hoping Dave might get a look at the new HD recorder at CES Unveiled last night, but Pure Digital - like many other companies - wasn’t on site. However my review unit is on its way and, in the meantime, here are the basic stats:

• Resolution: 720p
• Dimensions: 4″ x 2″ x 0.6″
• Weight: 3.3 oz.
• Storage: 4 GB, 60 mins of HD video
• Pricing: $229.99
• Availability: Design your own at TheFlip.com, or buy in black at Amazon, BestBuy.com, or WalMart.com

One of the issues with the Flip camcorders to date has been keeping a sharp focus for close-up shots. According to a Flip spokesperson, the MinoHD doesn’t necessary solve that problem, with the minimum focus range staying at 80 cm. However, it’s likely not a significant concern for casual users, particularly with the new HD resolution. Mainly the focus range is a bummer for those of us filming cell phones and product reviews.

I also asked whether the continued development of the Flip Mino line meant the end of the Flip Ultra. Not so, according to Pure Digital. The double-AA-battery-toting Ultra is sticking around.

Regarding the FlipShare software pictured below, it looks like PureDigital has added a few convenient new features in addition to upgrading the GUI. There’s now an option for adding music to your videos, plus the ability to create and sending video greeting cards

Ever wonder what would happen if geeky trade journalists made the jump from print to video production? Wonder no more. CableFAX editors Mike Grebb and Seth Arenstein have put up their own YouTube pilot video, Faxassins. Presumably created on a lark, the video follows Mike and Seth through shootouts, a mock sex scene (safe for work) and even an iPhone aside during a break in some goofy fighting action. It’s not going to win any Oscars, but it’s certainly good for a laugh. After all, these guys do have day jobs. And - a plug for CableFAX here - they’re pretty good at them.

The folks over at CNET caught New York’s two-minute analog-shut-off test on video yesterday. Side by side it shows one digital television broadcast behaving as normal, while an analog source displays color bars and a text crawl advising viewers of the upcoming DTV transition.

I strongly support reminders of our impending D-Day, but I’m not feeling optimistic about what these two-minute drills can do to help people with their digital converter box woes. To recap, the government has been issuing coupons for a good long while now so that over-the-air analog citizens can purchase digital converter boxes at a discount to keep their TV sets working beyond February 17th. Unfortunately, as of last week, less than half of the 32 million coupons requested have been used, and apparently 9.8 million have expired. (No, you can’t reapply once you’ve passed the expiration date.)

More to the point, who the heck is helping people set up their converter boxes when they do get around to buying them? I helped my neighbors out last month, Dave is scheduling a conference call with his mom to get her box working with the kitchen TV, and apparently in Wilmington they had volunteer firemen making house calls. Even when people do get the boxes working, there are quirks that folks aren’t prepared for. My neighbors, for example, couldn’t access any digital PBS stations. I did a little bit of research and here’s what I found:

WHYY-DT is not operating at full power level at this time. The lower power level is creating the difficulty in reception that you described. We are currently in transition to a much greater power level that will be equal to the other digital broadcast stations. This work will be completed when analog TV broadcasting ends at midnight on February 17, 2009. We apologize for the inconvenience during this transition period. Since reception is possible (although not stable) at your location, optimizing antenna positioning and perhaps the addition of an antenna pre-amplifier may improve your reception.