Dedicated Systems moves to pay-to-post system
I wouldn't want to be a publisher in the current market, and understand their need to generate revenue from as many sources as possible (let's hope publishers and advertising sales people aren't reading this, because I tell them something different!). I was, however, disappointed to see that Dedicated Systems is now asking for paid subscriptions to be able to post releases. The costs are not insignificant - €595 to €5000 per year, considerably more that would be required to stop the spam problem highlighted as one of the reasons for switching to a paid model.
Personally I don't believe websites that charge for publication in our industry are going to succeed. There are a huge number of sites, and whilst I'm sure there will be customers for the service, the new content will decrease and ultimately this is going to make the site less attractive as a marketing vehicle. There are technical solutions to spam, and a price structure that is a fraction of the one proposed would have the same spam-killing effect.
I hope Dedicated Systems reviews its policy and returns to a strategy of providing comprehensive news. I also hope other sites won't follow its lead, but I guess it is inevitable that some will decide on a move that provides undoubted benefits in the short term, despite the fact that it may significantly harm the site in the long term.
SupplyFrame hits 2M uniques in August
So much for a quiet summer... SupplyFrame hit 2M unique users for the first time in August, an impressive achievement that they claim is the highest number of uniques for any electronics site. It's certainly an impressive achievement.
So does this make SupplyFrame the industry's #1 site? Perhaps not. Although the site gets a lot of uniques, they view fewer pages that they do on other sites. In fact the 9M page views is still less than the traffic to EETimes. Furthermore SupplyFrame is different - it's almost like SEO, where content that might otherwise be viewed on the manufacturer's website is viewed on SupplyFrame. But this simple approach definitely works, and the SupplyFrame system can produce reasonably good leads, something other sites struggle to achieve.
Whatever the pros and cons of the site, getting so many visitors is a fabulous achievement, and I'm watching closely to see if the site can become the number one site in terms of page views. Place your bets now!
How to get better rankings in Google News
One for the publishers that read Napier News: Google has recently published a blog entry, along with a video, that explains to publishers how to improve their rankings in Google News. With more electronics publishers choosing to appear in Google News, and engineers beginning to use it as a source of information, this is something that is important for all publishers and editors in our industry.
Elektra awards shortlist
Congratulations to Jennic, LEM, Microchip, Picor and Vicor, all Napier clients shortlisted for the 2009 Elektra Awards.
Dates announced for Embedded Masterclass 2010
The Embedded Masterclass has announced that the 2010 event will take place on the 6th and 11th May at Reading and Birmingham, UK. Last year the event was held in Bristol and Cambridge, and it will be interesting to see the effect of changing location: Reading seems like an obvious move, although it will be interesting to see whether Birmingham will prove more popular than the technology hot-spot of Cambridge.
Landing pages are best
Interesting article about whether it is best to route people to the home page, category pages or individual landing pages by Gabriel Francis of the Google Analytics Team. Although it covers a completely different industry the conclusion that creating custom landing pages is the best approach is almost certainly valid for our industry, and the explanation of how to track the performance of different approaches will be useful to those who have control over their websites.
Inware Edizioni launches custom publishing project for Comprel
I was interested to hear about Elettronica 360, a custom publication created by Inware Edizioni for Italian distributor Comprel. In other industries custom publishing is big business, so it's great to see a publisher see in-house magazine as an opportunity. I was lucky enough to be able to interview Antonio Cirella from Inware Edizioni about the project.
Is this the first time your company has published an in-house magazine?
Yes, we had few experiences in the past but Elettronica 360 is the first project of this type with a regular publication plan (3/4 issues per year).
Why did Comprel decide to use a publishing company, rather than create the magazine within their marketing department?
This is a key point, happy to answer! Small/medium sized distributors that mainly work in local markets don’t have internal resources to allocate for a major project like a magazine. Nevertheless, they do all provide a marketing and communication budget. The key is to allocate part of the marketing budget to create an great magazine in partnership with an experienced publishing house that has all the know how and resources available to support the project.
Why is a distributor launching an in-house magazine at a time when commercially publications are struggling and advertising prices are low?
This is another key factor. An house organ can give up-to-date information for customers, suppliers and (last but not least) internal communication. The purpose - of course - is not to compete with any of the commercial magazines, but just to reach the readers, suppliers and other related targets, with fresh information (technical and commercial) about the status of the company. All of this using part of the communication budget that normally distributors allocate to catalogue printing - and printed catalogues get obsolete very soon.
Who manages the advertising/sponsorship for “Elettronica 360”?
AThis is done by Comprel, which is free do set any co-marketing with franchisees and get funding from this action.
Don't you think that in-house magazines such as “Elettronica 360” could compete with, and potentially take income from commercially published titles?
Not at all! I firmly believe that readership of commercial titles won’t be affected by house organs and also advertisers will look at them differently from commercial magazines. This is not an original idea, house organs have always been published (Rutronik, EBV and others) but now they can be published by smaller or local distributors! Elettronica 360 creates a new possibility for those who always have dreamed to have their own house organ but never managed due to time and resources shortage.
What are the benefits to readers of in-house titles such as “Elettronica 360”, which only cover a small proportion of the electronics industry - ie the products sold by Comprel?
They’ll get fresh information about Comprel, in a form that is similar to a magazine with extended commercial and technical information. As said, I see no overlap in readership between a commercial magazine and a house organ, Another point is that Comprel sales people use Elettronica 360 during discussions with customers as a sales tool. The customers/readers simply like it! And get more information about Comprel offering too!
Obviously you don't have the same editorial freedoms when writing “Elettronica 360”. Do you enjoy having to always meet the demands of Comprel?
I like this question because it gives me the possibility to better clarify our role. We differ from other publishing companies mostly by the fact that we use an in-house editorial team to produce the articles published in our magazines. We have an network of around 60 freelance editors involved with our magazine editorial production. They are all engineers with a deep knowledge of several different topics and all capable of writing good articles (this is not always the case…). We can meet almost any requirement or commitment from vendors and our editorial plan is indeed very wide. These attitudes perfectly meet the requirements of an house organ editorial production, so we are not concerned about the choices of the client.
Do you plan to repeat Elettronica 360 experience in the future?
Yes. Our next goal is to produce an house organ in English language, for international markets. We are at the moment evaluating a couple of proposals.
EDN Europe speeds up digital version
Like several other publications, EDN Europe has moved away from the Olive platform. It's disappointing to see that Olive couldn't maintain their early lead in electronic publishing. In particular Olive seemed to have fairly long download times, whereas the new Ceros platform is much quicker. Although digital magazines still don't match the experience of reading a paper publication, most people are now much happier to read their magazines in digital format than they were a year ago. Personally I believe that digital delivery of a magazine-type format will continue to grow in importance as readers increasingly accept the format over the next few years.
Call for papers - PCIM 2010
The organisers of PCIM 2010 have issued a call for papers. Submissions are invited with a 3-4 page synopsis of the paper, and are due by 15th October 2009.
Legal news
A couple of interesting stories from the wonderful Marketinglaw site (NB registration required for both these stories). The protection of personal data exported from Europe under the safe harbor regime FTC has made the first prosecution of a company over failing to meet safe harbour requirements for personal data exported from the UK. With much of the technology industry driven from the US, it's important that companies understand the legislation covering export of personal data outside of the EU.
MarketingLaw also highlights the change of legislation in the Netherlands, where all email marketing must be on an opt-in basis from 1st October 2009.
Chip News takes a break
Chip News (a Russian publication) has stopped publishing, although they hope to restart when the economy improves. They have made the decision only five issues after moving from a print to a CD format. The publishers cite a number of reasons for the decision: logistical problems, technical problems with ads, the expense of mailing and the fact that not as many Russian companies are ready to work with an electronic advertising format.
The decision to switch to an electronic edition of Chip News was made in Feb 2009. The publisher conducted a survey of most of their readers, and received a response from around 1/3. Westerners might be surprised that 95% of respondents requested a CD issue, rather than electronic delivery by email. Despite the clear demand from readers, it's apparent that advertisers have been less enthusiastic. Interestingly the major competitor to Chip News, Electronics and Components has also started to use a CD format, although they have retained a print version.
I'd expect Chip News to roll out an online publication pretty quickly, perhaps even by the end of this year, and hope that this will ensure the brand continues to live on.
UK Email benchmarking report
This may be of interest to people who would like country-specific email marketing research. Signup.to, a UK hosted email marketing company has produced the The UK Email Marketing Benchmark Report.
Medtronic to publish company directory
I wouldn't normally cover special issues and directories in Napier News - there are simply too many of them! But when the nice people at beam-Verlag told me about their medical electronics directory I decided to make an exception. beam-Verlag only recently launched meditronic-journal, and are already planning a buyers' guide to be included in issue 6. Any company that deals with medicine electronics (also distributors) can get a free company entry, and the directory will be out just in time for the Medica/compamed exhibitions.
Call for panel proposals - DATE 2010
The organisers of DATE 2010 have issued a call for panel proposals. Panels should discuss future trends, hot-topic technologies and business aspects of the embedded systems, embedded software, Multiprocessor Systems-on-Chip, EDA, ASIC, FPGA and IP. The organisers also promise that the panels combine invited academics and industry experts for a more controversial look at the electronic design research and marketplace. Submissions must be made via the DATE website by 6th September 2009. The show will be held from 8th-12th March 2010 at the ICC in Dresden, Germany.
Call for papers - IP-ESC 2009
The organisers of IP-ESC 2009, have issued a call for papers. A summary of at least 3 pages is required, which must be submitted either by email or through the website by 20th September 2009.
NEW moves and shortens the week to two days
The organisers of National Electronics Week (NEW) were busy canvassing exhibitors and visitors at this year's show, and will surprise no one with their decision to cut the show down to two days in 2010, saving exhibitors' time and money. Perhaps more controversial is the decision to move to the NEC - my informal conversations at the show suggested that exhibitors were split on whether it would be right to move the event, with the production equipment suppliers more enthusiastic about a move to the Midlands.
NEW will also be held earlier in the year, running from the 18th – 19th May 2010, instead of June. This date fits nicely between Bank Holidays and is before the schools' half-term break, so should maximise the number of people who could attend.
Perhaps the most important thing is that NEW will happen in 2010 - with the tough economic climate, the recent introduction of NEW and the reluctance of UK engineers to attend shows, it's great to see exhibitors commit to next year's show. Let's hope the change of date and location and the more compact schedule not only encourages more visitors, but also is the incentive exhibitors need to attend.
Do engineers use social media?
We recently conducted a survey in collaboration with the University of Chichester to understand the impact of social media on engineers. The report abstract states:
This joint project between Napier and the University of Chichester aims to understand whether engineers make use of social media, and if so whether social media provides an effective marketing channel to electronics design engineers in Europe. The research reveals that whilst engineers are making use of online tools to communicate and collaborate – particularly forums and LinkedIn – there appears to be a significant resistance to social media and viral marketing amongst a large section of the engineering audience.
I'm really excited to have completed this project, which shows that although there is some reluctance amongst engineers to adopt social media, the technology is being used to source information about companies and products as well as to collaborate with colleagues. The summary report is available online as a downloadable PDF. A full set of results is also available in Excel format, and are available on request - simply send me an email.
Social media survey iPod winner
Congratulations to Mr. Anthony T. Jones of EMTEQ - Europe, who was the lucky winner of the iPod Touch in the draw for people who completed our social media survey. The results are very interesting - please contact me for a copy of the report.
50 years of the UIPRE
The UIPRE (Union Internationale de la Presse Radiotechnique et Electronique) has just celebrated its 50th anniversary. The organisation is the only worldwide active association of trade journalists and editors specialising in electronics. Formed on 13th August 1959 when 22 specialist journalists from eight countries met in Frankfurt in the wake of the German Exhibition on Consumer
Technologies, the organisation continues to attract members who want to maintain a high standard of journalism in the electronics industry. Happy Birthday UIPRE!
Program announced for Embedded Software Engineering Kongress
MicroConsult and ELEKTRONIKPRAXIS have released the programme for the second Embedded Software Engineering Kongress, which will be held at Congress Center Stadthalle Sindelfingen from 8th to 10th December 2009. I'm always impressed at the success that German publishers have when organising conferences: the three-day event promises a packed programme of 90 presentations and 10 in-depth seminars. Perhaps even more impressive is that the first event drew almost 600 attendees, reflecting the fact that most technical events focused on a specific subject continue to attract good visitors numbers in Europe.
Call for papers - Smart Systems Integration
The organisers of SMART SYSTEMS INTEGRATION 2010, which is taking place from 23-24 March 2010 in Como, Italy, have issued a call for papers. The conference is billed as the "European Conference & Exhibition on Integration Issues of Miniaturized Systems - MEMS, MOEMS, ICs and Electronic Components". Abstracts must be submitted by 20 October 2009. for help generating the abstract, contact Napier or visit the Smart Systems Integration website.
Weka Sommernachtsfest 2009
With over 500 guests, the Weka Sommernachtsfest 2009 proved to be a fantastic event held at the historic MVG Museum. Proving that Germans really do have a great sense of humour, WEKA's Managing Director Kurt Skupin told guests "We can't afford it, and if you really want to know, we never could afford it". Weka have a gallery of photos and also a video of the event on the Elektroniknet.de website.
Channel-e and Elektor partner
With the limited advertising revenue available in any downturn, I'm always interested to see how publications can continue to deliver the high-quality editorial that the readers demand whilst keeping control of costs. I was pleased to see that Channel-e and elektor Verlag have partnered, with Channel-e producing two specials for elector. The first deals with microcontrollers (November) and the second with LEDs (December). It's great that different publishers can work together to ensure they continue to deliver great editorial, and I will be watching the results of this partnership closely.
Michelle Winny takes over at Electronics
Michelle Winny has wasted no time since leaving CIE, as she has already landed the editor's role at Electronics. Michelle replaces John Taylor, who held the editor role at Electronics for more than a year, and whose last issue will be September 2009.
Call for papers - PCIM Europe 2010
The organisers of PCIM Europe have issued a call for papers. Authors can submit an oral presentation that will be held within relevant conference sessions; a poster presentation or a one-day tutorials that can be held by one or more speakers. The deadline for submission is 15th October 2009, and abstracts can be submitted through the PCIM website.