What's New in Industry moves online
It was sad to see that Septebmer was the last printed issue of What's New in Industry. With the retirement of the editor David Keighley and departure of the sales manager Simon Bonell the magazine has decided to move to publising only online at www.wnii.co.uk, with Carolyn Ellison, the online editor, supplying content.
Chris Shaw appointed deputy editor of New Electronics
Chris Shaw has joined New Electronics as deputy editor. Chris is well known from his time at MMG Publishing, where he was editor of Electronics Sourcing and Electronics Assembly.
Tim Fryer takes on Managing Editor role
Congralutations to Tim Fryer, who has taken on the role of managing editor for both EPD and Electronics Manufacture and Test. Tim has edited EM&T for many years and brings enormous experience with him. IML is currently looking for a Technical Editor to support Tim on EPD.
ABCe launch enhanced certificate
I still seeing a lot of websites self-auditing, despite the need for cirulation audits being well established for print titles. Although this move is no doubt going to have most impact in the consumer sector, I was interested to see ABCe announce enhanced certificates, where audit information will be supplemented by demographic information that is collected through a survey. With no qualification criteria, websites can see search engines driving traffic that doesn't add value to advertisers. Although I don't expect to see a pile of these enhanced certificates arriving in my inbox, I think this is part of a trend where advertisers are trying to get a better understanding of the quality as well as the quantity of people who are viewing their online ads. This has to be a good thing, both for advertisers who want to advertise to people who are interested in their products and also for website owners who should ultimately be able to charge a premium for higher-quality eyeballs!
Techinsights gives Richard Wallace leading role
Richard Wallace, Vice President/Editor-in-Chief of TechInsights has been given the role of leading the combined global content teams at EE Times and TechOnline, providing a focus that I believe will continue to drive TechInsights forward in the electronics market.
TechInsights has also made Colin Holland a staff editor and given him two titles (isn't one enough Colin?). He is Editor-in-Chief - Embedded as well as holding the role of Senior Editor on EE Times Europe. Congratulations to both Colin and Richard.
AgLa readership survey finally released
After months of talking, the results of the AgLa survey are finally out. This is the study sponsored by E&E, Elektronik Informationen, Elektronik Industrie, Elektronik Praxis and Elektronik Journal to answer the Weka-sponsored La Elfa study.
So who were the winners and losers? Well not surprisingly the raw readership results are less flattering for the three Weka titles than La Elfa, although unsurprisingly even this study still shows M&T as the title with the highest reach. Elektronik Praxis does well, beating Elektronik to have the second-highest reach. Elektronik Industrie is another winner, "beating" D&E. In this study respondents are asked about the pan-European titles, which don't score well, although EPN gets the highest readership (who says product books are dead!).
So what does this mean? Well like all studies this one isn't the perfect solution to media planning - like all the others it provides useful information, but also can't be the perfect answer. Even if the surveys were perfect, we still wouldn't plan a media schedule by blindly chasing the highest reach (and there should be a special mention for Elektronik Informationen, which was the first title to contact me about the study, and to highlight the positive conclusions you can draw about the title from the study). Why not contact me for a more detailed comparison of the two surveys?
ElectronicsTalk appoints new editor
Dave Wilson is the new editor of ElectronicsTalk, replacing Laurence Marchini who has gone on to new projects, but will still work with Pro-Talk as a consultant
Mike Richardson lands editorship of Aerospace Manufacturing!
Mike Richardson, who was previously at New Electronics, has been appointed editor of Aerospace Manufacturing. Mike promises to include "more embedded and systems-related electronics editorial content" in the publication, which should please many of the contacts he has build during his time working on electronics titles.
MicroTCA Conference announced for November 2009 in Munich
Given the success of the events in 2007 and 2008, it's not a big surprise that ICC Media will be holding their MicroTCA Conference in 2009. The event will be in Munch on 2nd and 3rd November.
Embedded Systems Show 2008 to feature live teardowns
The organisers of the Embedded Systems Show have heard the maxim that "engineers just can't resist taking things apart", and have responded by introducing the TechInsights live teardowns to the show. The Estes Micro-Tiger RC Helicopter and the X-Box Steering Wheel will be pulled apart by TechInsights "teardown experts" to reveal the "techniques and technologies that bring these products to life. The teardowns are a regular feature of TechInsights shows in the US and should prove a popular addition to the UK event.
PCIM 2009 - call for papers
The organisers of PCIM 2009 have issued a call for papers. Visit the PCIM website to submit your abstract, which are due by 20th October and must be submitted in a strictly-defined format.
Napier clients shortlisted for Elektra Awards
Congratulations to our clients, LEM, Vicor and Wittenstein high integrity systems who have all been shortlisted for an Elektra Award. We're looking forward to the awards dinner on Monday 10th November in Munich, and I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the finalists.
New research about distributors in Europe
In the past we've conducted research about the European electronics media that has given clients and publishers a better view of the way that European engineers obtain information about products. For our latest project, we decided to look at the way distributors are perceived by engineers and purchasers in Europe. This has been a fascinating project for me, as during my career I used distributors when I was an engineer, worked for a distributor and also worked for a manufacturer with an extensive distribution network.
Our research looks at the popularity of distributors by region, allowing comparisons to be made between local distributors, pan-European organisations and global players. Some of the key findings from the research include:
We are currently finalising our summary and full reports. If you would like to get a copy of one of these reports, please email me.
Fun with Wordle
You might have seen the concept of "word clouds", where words are picked out from text, with the most frequently-used ones given greater prominence. We've just found Wordle, a website that will produce a word cloud automatically from a website with an RSS or Atom feed - the picture above shows the results for the NapierNews.eu homepage. Nice!
Winner of iPod from Napier's distribution survey
Congratulations to Jørn Poulsen, a Project Manager at Crysberg, who was the lucky winner of the iPod Touch from our distribution survey.
DATE09: Call for workshop proposals
Following on from the recent call for papers, the organisers of DATE09 have issued a call for proposals for themes and Chairpeople for the Friday workshops. For more information contact Professor Peter Cheung, Imperial College London.
Elektroniktidningen electronic magazine
Elektroniktidningen has launched an electronic version of the magazine. They're using the E-Magin reader, which gives pretty page-turning effects, and seems to load pretty quickly, although it doesn't seem to offer a facility to save articles as PDFs. Interstingly the electronic magazine is available with a single click from the magazine's internet home page, increasing the possible readership (although this will be completely uncontrolled circulation). I'm a big believer in electronic versions of magazines playing an important role in the future of the European electronics media, andit's good to see more and more publishers offering the electronic option.
93 and still booking advertising!
Following on from my recent Napier News article about Funkschau's novel advertising promotion for their 80th birthday issue, I'm told by the publishers that they received one purchase order from a 93 year-old media buyer, who was more than happy to claim his 93% discount - that must be some kind of record for Germany! The astute media buyer really did take advantage of the offer by booking a double-page spread!
E-Paper oder Printmagazin?
Publish Industry will be offering electronic version of A&D, E&E, Energy 2.0, P&A and S&I as a "Green Publishing" alternative to the paper copies. The've been emailing readers, offering them the chance to switch to "E-Paper" versions.
I've always thought that electronic versions of magazines will be a key part of the future media for our industry. Paper is environmentaly unfriendly, and expensive to distribute, and websites don't have the careful layout and editing that make magazines so accessible and eas to browse. Of course there are problems - the quality of displays is still way behind paper, and portability is a real issue when reading electronic magainzes. Despite this, I remain hopeful that electronic magazines will ensre that the attractive design, careful story selection and expert writing will continue to be a part of our lives without unneccesary environmental consequences of printing hard copies.
SENSOR+TEST 2008 final survey report available
The organisers of SENSOR+TEST 2008 have released the results of their visitor and exhibitor numbers, as well as final attendance figures. Although visitor numbers were slightly below expectations, the show appears to have been successful, and quality of attendees was highlighted in the exhibitor survey.
The show was held in May, and we were interested to see that an optimistic 91% of visitors didn't expect an economic downturn: we wonder whether that level of optimism remains in the industry today!
Green SupplyLine relaunches
Tech Insight's Green Supply Line has been relaunched. When launched in 2005, the aim was to provide news and information about RoHS and WEEE, but with the transition to the new legal regime now history, the site has refocussed to concentrate on the high growth "cleantech" and green engineering markets, particularly the renewable energy industry. This is an obvious move to give a site that had completed its mission a new lease of life, and we'd expect the new editoral focus to drive content for much longer than RoHS and WEEE.
Electronic Components Russia gets Western European representative
As an agency we've been actively working with Eastern European magazines for more than 10 years, and have conducted many successful campaigns for our clients in this exciting region. We're glad to see that the publishers are gradually organising sales representatives to sell space in Western Europe, as this will help grow and develop these valuable titles.
In the latest move, four Russian titles - Electronic Components, Electronics Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, Embedded Systems Russia - are now being represented by Nick Walker, who continues to be the commercial face of EPN and several other Reed titles. For advice on these titles and many, many others across the countries of Eastern Europe, contact Napier.
Ridley's Power Supply Workshops
Dr.Ray Ridley, the well known power supply guru and contributor to PSDE, will be running a 4-day power supply workshoop from 29th September to 2nd October 2008 in Bordeaux, France. Delegates will also receive a copy of Ridley Engineering's POWER 4-5-6 software. For more information and to download a registration form, visit the Ridley Engineering website.
80 years of funkschau
Congratulations to German title funkschau on their 80th anniversary, which was celebrated in the 8th August issue. funkschau was one of the first trade journals for telecommunications anywhere in the world, and proved it could still innovate with the age-related discount offer for the 80th issue. An "anniversary discount" corresponding to the age of the media buyer was offered, so a 35 year-old would get a 35 percent discount, a 40 year-old 40 percent, etc. I think promotions such as these are great fun, and would love to see more of them.
funkschau didn't extend the discount to decision makers older than 100, who would otherwise have been paid to advertise. Sadly we have no news on the oldest media buyer to take advantage of the offer, nor whether any media buyers aged over 100 decided to sue for age discrimination!
Mike Richardson to leave New Electronics
Mike Richardson is leaving New Electronics on 22 August to join the editorial team of Aerospace Manufacturing. I'll let you know as soon any successor is appointed.
With another UK-based electronics editor leaving the electronics sector, there is a risk of a real shortage of editorial talent. I hope that publishers will be able to attract a new generation of editors to the industry, ensuring UK continues to publish titles that deliver high-quality, independent editorial.