As part of the reorganisation of editors at Fiera Milano Editore, Antonella Cattaneo has been appointed Managing Editor of Automazione Oggi and Fieldbus&Networks, the magazines covering factory automation. Previously Antonella was at EO News, where she has been replaced by Filippo Fossati.

Tags: Editors, EO News, Italy

Congratulations to Filippo Fossati, who has just been appointed editor-in-chief of EO News – the second time that he has held this role. Filippo is going to be a very busy man, as this new appointment is in addition to his current role as editor-in-chief of Elettronica Oggi, Elettronica Oggi Web, and Embedded magazine! It’s great to have such outstanding editors as Filippo in our industry, and I’m amazed as how much work he can get through – producing three great magazines and a website. In fact I wonder if four editor-in-chief roles is some kind of record!

Tags: Editors, Elettronica Oggi, EO News, Italy

Firmware has launched a digital version of the magazine, making Inware Edizioni the first publisher in our sector to launch a digital title. I’m told that there is an ongoing commitment to the print edition, but clearly the move to digital makes sense. I’m a firm believer in the benefits of a magazine format over websites for browsing and educating readers on new approaches and technologies, and am convinced that digital distribution will be the norm in a few years.

Tags: Digital Magazines, Italy

Fiera Milano Editore organise some great seminars in Italy. Here is a list of the events they have planned for 2010:

• MC4 – Motion Control for – 12th March 2010, Palazzo dei Congressi – Bologna
• VfM – Vision for Manufacturing – 16th June 2010, Hotel Parma e Congressi – Parma
• Control & Communication – second half of September 2010, Milan
• IA – Industrial Automation Forum – October 2010, location TBD
• Focus Embedded – November 2010, location TBD

Tags: Italy, Shows and Events

Inware is promoting a new way to create an immediate electronic link between readers of print titles and advertisers. The publisher is encouraging advertisers to include an electronic tag that can be snapped by a camera on a smart phone and used to jump immediately to relevant online content.

This is a great move, and with the increasing use of internet enabled phones from blackberries to iPhones, is likely to be something that will grow and grow. Our research has shown that when reading magazines engineers are often not close to a PC, and don’t like to type in long URLs into their phones to get information. This approach bridges the gap, and unlike other Microsoft technologies is available for smart phones running a wide range of different OSs.

I’d bet on adoption of this technology growing pretty quickly across all markets, although in industries such as ours, where the delivery of detailed technical information is important, the technology looks particularly applicable. Kudos to Inware for being an early adopter!

Tags: EiN, ESE, Inware, Italy, Misc Marketing, Online, Print Publications, Research

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.

Tags: Interviews, Inware, Italy, Misc Marketing, Print Publications

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.

Tags: Call for Papers, Italy, Shows and Events

Traditionally several European titles in our industry are somewhat slow at producing editorial calendars and media information. So I was more than impressed to see that Fiera Milano Editore – Technology Division has already issued the editorial calendars for next year! For information about the plans for titles such as EO News, Elettronica Oggi and Embedded (previously EO Embedded), visit the publishers website.

Tags: Elettronica Oggi, EO News, Italy, Print Publications

The web portal for the Italian magazines Elettronica Oggi. EO News and EO Embedded (as well as several other automation, mechanical, energy and environment titles), ilb2b.it has been relaunched. I’m really pleased to see that the site takes advantage of social media opportunities, with space for comments on stories as well as easy links to share the content on social networking sites from Twitter to Digg.
The publishers promise future enhancements, the most interesting of which is the opportunity to launch digital titles hosted on the portal – such as EO Web – as well as web seminars, forums and the possibility of pay-per-service. Pay-per-service is particularly interesting as it offers a new revenue stream for publishers, and I will be keen to see if the portal can make this approach a viable commercial venture.

Tags: Elettronica Oggi, EO News, Italy, Online

At a time when some publishers have moved away from certifying their circulation (TechInsights being the best example), it is good to see other publishers continuing a commitment to have their circulation audited. Elettronica Oggi has got a new certificate from Bureau Veritas. OK, so maybe it’s not quite as good as a BPA audit, but from my point of view I think it is great that publishers are still prepared to invest the money in proving the quality of their circulation.

Tags: Elettronica Oggi, Italy

Although it has been running quietly since September 2008, Vertigo s.r.l. has only just formally launched www.StrumentazioneElettronica.it, the only dedicated electronics test and measurement website in Italy. The site has a clean, clear look, and is built on Joomla, the popular CMS system. With Stefano Cazzani editing the site, I’m also confident that www.StrumentazioneElettronica.it will have compelling editorial. The site features some reader interaction through comments on stories, and promises more social media features soon. It’s great to see new launches, particularly when the Internet allows a focused vertical title to be launched that probably wouldn’t be viable as a print publication.

Tags: Italy, Online

What do you most enjoy about your job?
I manage the contents of a magazine dedicated to the programmable electronic devices, which means I’m constantly updated and in touch with both the key suppliers and also with the designers and engineers that use these technologies in devices. This is what I enjoy in my job: to be active part in the spreading technologies and to see them applied in the most varied applications.

Which areas of electronics interest you the most?
Personally I’m interested in all of things that are electronics, but for sure, the area that I prefer is microcontrollers. Lately with the coming of the multi-Core systems this topic is even more interesting!

Readers have to pay for their copies of Firmware. Why would a reader pay for a magazine when there are a number of free ones available?
The articles published on Firmware magazine (www.fwonline.it) are written by designers skilled the electronics. Due this, the contents are very different from controlled circulation magazines that usually take contributions supplied from vendors. However we also have a mailing so lots of engineers receive Firmware every month, free of charge.

How do you cater for both people who work in electronics and people for whom electronics is a hobby?
The readers of Firmware are mostly engineers because the contents are technically complex and beyond the capacity of those for whom electronics is a hobby. For the hobbyists we have other magazines like Fare Elettronica (www.farelettronica.com) and “L’elettronica di Mr A.keer” (www.akeer.it) – a series of video DVDs that help people learn about electronics.

Do you have any plans to enhance the magazine or website over the next year?
We will improve the web site with many more extra articles that are not published in the printed magazine. Moreover we are working in order to publish Firmware in other European languages.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time, when you’re not editing Firmware?
About 4 months ago my son was born, so all my spare time is dedicated to the child. At the moment he gives me many things to do!!

Will the Internet kill printed magazines?
This is a good question. The Internet has already killed many printed magazines due the costs of printing and the the very low cost of electronic distribution: in fact thousands of readers can be reached in few minutes by sending a simple newsletter! The Italians readers still prefer the printed magazine and I think that this will be the case for some time. The magazines can be collected and can be browsed through without the aid of a computer.
Hmm… thinking, if we post a good article on net, the majority of the people prefer to print it and to read it rather than to read it on the PC’s monitor.

Do you personally prefer to get information in print or online?
It depends from the type of information that I’m looking for. If I need a tips or an information “to the flight” I prefer the online version, but if I have to read a complex argument the printed version version for me is essential. However I don’t hide to you that I often print documents before reading them!

What is your favourite gadget?
As I have already said, I’m attracted by anything that works with voltage and current, therefore my favourite gadget has to be electronic! Lately I am amusing myself with a multimedia hard disk that I’m using in order to store and show AVI video recorded using my camcorder. Obviously the subject of the videos is always my son, the little Del Corso!

Tags: Interviews, Italy