Napier News

The well known Danish editor and toy train aficionado, Rolf Sylvester-Hvid.has taken over the editor duties at Elektronik Nyt. Rolf also continues to hold his editor role at TechMedia’s other electronics title, Aktuel Elektronik.

Tags: Denmark, Editors

The design of Electronics Weekly has been updated to a “cleaner and more modern” look. Interestingly one of the changes is to reduce the number of stories highlighted on the front page – presumably to encourage more people to read through the magazine in a linear fashion.

The 23rd to 29th June 2010 issue is available here: http://cde.cerosmedia.com/1P4c1f3e1febf94979.cde

Tags: Digital Magazines and Print Publications, Electronics Weekly, UK

From June 2010, EO News is reducing its frequency to once per month, and with no issues planned for July/August and December issues off the schedule, leaving June, September, October and a joint Nov/Dec issue left this year.

We understand that EO News will go entirely digital in 2011, and the content will focus on news and analysis for managers in electronics companies, with a total circulation anticipated to be around 25K.  It’s good to hear that most articles and interviews will continue to be written specifically for the title by the editorial team: there is no intention to cut costs by relying on contributed articles.

Elettronica Oggi and Elettronica Embedded are expected to be unaffected, remaining as they are in terms of frequency and content,

Tags: Digital Magazines and Print Publications, Elettronica Oggi, EO News, Italy

I was pleased to see that Energie & Technik now has its own website. The launch of the publication has been a great example of how to build momentum over an extended period of time, and now that the publication is gaining even more independence from Markt & Technik, I hope that it goes from strength to strength.

Tags: Energy&Technik, Germany, Markt und Technik, Online, Weka

Over 60 videos of keynotes and presentations from PCIM are now available on the PCIM website. I think this is a great move, and would expect more conferences and events in our industry to make videos of the content available online.

There are, however, two approaches to posting the video: you either see this as a revenue-generating opportunity, or as a way to promote the event. PCIM falls clearly into the first category, charging €295 for access to the material (with a €100 discount for universities).

I’ll be interested to see what happens in the long term: PCIM has a very high standard of presentations, and so you can be sure that you’re not going to pay for a procession of product pitches. So I can definitely see people paying for access, although I’d like to see the organisers experiment with different price points: maybe a nominal charge such as €50 might bring in more revenue? I’ll also be interested to see whether other events offer content free of charge: I’m sure speakers would like access to the largest possible audience, and the astonishing cost of marketing events to visitors, might make video content from previous events one of the most cost-effective ways of filling a conference or exhibition.

Tags: Germany, PCIM, Shows and Events

David Morrison has joined the Power Systems Design editorial team, and will be writing a regular column covering Recruitment and Career Development that will be published in PSDE as well as the North America and China editions. David is well known in the power field, working as editor and publisher of How2Power.com. He previously held the role of Editor-in-Chief of Power Electronics Technology (PET).

I think this is a great move for the Power Systems Design family of titles, strengthening the existing roster of well-known regular contributors (Dr. Ray Ridley of Ridley Engineering and Ash Sharma of IMS Research). It may also give us an insight into the future of the media in our sector: it’s easy to see how the industry may end up with a small number of publications that are able to assemble large teams of contributors, whilst these journalists are also entrepreneurial publishers, running their own online publications to both generate income and also to establish their expert credentials.

Tags: Digital Magazines and Print Publications, Editors, Europe, Online, PSDE, USA

We were all delighted that Napier has been named as one of the UK’s top technology consultancies by PR Week in their 2010 league tables. Thanks to all our clients for their support and for choosing Napier!

Tags: Awards, News About Napier

Congratulations to LEM, who have won an award for their RT series of current transducers in the electrical measurement category of Mesures’ 15th Palmarès Technologique.

Tags: Awards, Clients, France

It’s great to see that really good editors are in demand. Colin Holland, who has shared his coverage between the US and European EE Times titles, has been snapped up full time by EE Times Group (the American publisher). I understand that Phil Ling will be named as Colin’s replacement as Embedded Editor for EE Times Europe.

Both these editors have outstanding knowledge of the embedded industry, and it’s great to see demand for such high-quality talent from EE Times (on both sides of the Atlantic). I’d like to wish them both the best of luck in their new roles. If any more details are forthcoming in the official announcement, I’ll cover them here on Napier News.

Tags: Editors, EE Times, USA

The Elektra Awards have opened for entries. Arguably the Electras are the most prized awards in the European electronics industry, and there is always strong competition, particularly in popular categories such as the two semiconductor product of the year awards.

The entries are due to close on 2nd July 2010. Although it has become somewhat of a tradition for this deadline to be extended, I’d strongly recommend getting your entries in on time: I’m sure that at some point Electronics Weekly will stick to the published closing date!

Tags: Awards

Josh Gordon reports that the BPA is testing new metrics for digital-only magazine audits. This has to be a good thing: I’ve been banging on about my belief that digital magazines have a great future because they offer things that simply aren’t replicated in a conventional publication website. If the BPA can find ways to quantify the level of engagement from readers of a digital publication, it’s going to help advertisers get a much better handle on whether a digital publication is the best place to allocate some of their hard-fought advertising budget.

Tags: Digital Magazines, Misc Marketing

Anne-Francoise Pele has taken over as the new editor for the EE Times Automotive DesignLine – the one tied to EE Times US, rather than EE Times Europe. Whilst it is good to see EE Times Group strengthening their editorial teams around the DesignLines, it does appear that this is also another move in the EE Times v. EE Times Europe online battle, as EBP continues to publish the European Automotive DesignLine.

I’m not sure what this is going to mean in the long term, as it seems pretty clear that EE Times Group (the publishers of EE Times US) is trying to pull global traffic to their sites, and in Europe it seems that their biggest opportunity is to pull readers from EBP’s (the publisher of EE Times Europe) sites.

To be honest I’ve absolutely no insight into how the situation developed, but with the greater resources available to the American publisher, it’s going to be very difficult for the sites associated with EE Times Europe to maintain their traffic. I know traffic figures fell significantly after the switch to the electronics-eetimes.com – which isn’t surprising with such a domain name change – but it will be interesting to see if they can regain the previous high levels of traffic in the medium term.

Tags: Editors, EE Times, Online