EE Times Group has launched their new EE Times (US) website, which now includes all the division’s different publications (Embedded.com, for example, previously wasn’t part of the EETimes.com site). Apart from some minor teething troubles – the heavily-promoted links to the tour of the new site didn’t work – the site is definitely a very impressive resource, and I think that the design will grow on me (I’m not a huge fan of the mix of rounded and right-angled corners on the home page).

European marketing professionals must ask, “Will a great EETImes.com mean I don’t need to do local marketing?” I certainly don’t think that this is the case. If we forget the hugely important factor of local language, I still believe that local websites will dominate the majority of online reading for engineers in Europe – at least for the time being. Habit, promotion through print publications and local content are all going to ensure strong traffic to local sites.

In the long term, however, I’m sure EE Times Group will try to grab more and more traffic from Europe, as well as the globe’s other continents. EE Times has the benefit of scale: the 21 topics within “Design” and 17 product categories is more than any European editorial team has been able to pull together (elektroniknet.de, for example, has 11 categories that span both design and products). Only time will tell whether the ability to produce highly specific content will be sufficient to attract European engineers’ eyeballs away from local sites.

Tags: EE Times, Online, USA

One thing is sure – the German publishers know how to throw great summer parties. Check online for photos and videos of the recent Weka Sommernachtsfest 2010 and the Elektronikpraxis Sommerfest 2010.

Tags: Digital Magazines and Print Publications, Germany, Online

With many people predicting the future of magazines to lay within tablets such as the iPad, perhaps apps also represent a real opportunity for publishers. Electropages was one of the first sites to produce their own iPhone app (Electronics News), and I’m told that they have achieved 52K downloads in the 16 months the app has been available.

Generating such a high number of downloads must mean there is a demand for more media-driven apps on mobile devices, and I’m sure that the Electronics News app helps drive traffic to the site. I’m also told that the app has recently been improved with feature to automatically populate the user’s details when they make an enquiry. I’m sure that in the future we’ll see many different publishers’ apps in the iTunes store.

Tags: Electropages, Online

The EE Times declaration that “Engineers don’t like Twitter” was interesting – the results mirror some of the conclusions from our own survey of social media habits of European engineers. We also found that superficial social networking simply wasn’t important to engineers, who preferred the more task-orientated social interaction offered by forums.

It’s interesting that, despite the amount of effort being put into developing new social media tools, engineers’ online habits haven’t changed much. As an FAE 15 years ago, one of my jobs was supporting customers through internet newsgroups. Although these newsgroups have generally been replaced by forums managed by vendors, the social media interaction that gets engineers the results they need has barely changed in the last one and a half decades.

Tags: Online, Social Media

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

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

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

EmbeddedDeveloper.com, a joint venture between Convergence Promotions and Hearst Business Media has launched a German language site, EmbeddedDeveloper.de. The new site is built around the same product database that underpins the English and Chinese sites, but also includes a local-language newsfeed (although English stories still appear amongst the German news).

I’m not surprised that the site sees the German market as a good opportunity: it’s the largest embedded market in Europe, and engineers clearly have a strong preference for local-language publications. At the time of launch, the German site appears to be getting most of the advertising revenue from the same partners as the .com site, although if Embedded Developer can build a local audience, I’m sure that they will begin to pull in revenue from the many embedded companies based in Central Europe.

Tags: Germany, Online

It’s amazing how the internet has changed some businesses. In the past electronics companies looking to hire people had the choice of either spending a couple of thousand dollars on an advert in a magazine or calling in a recruitment agencies. Now online recruitment has dramatically cut the cost of advertising jobs .

Despite the greatly reduced cost, it’s arguable that there is more competition for job adverts. i recently wrote about the upgrade to the Electronics Weekly jobs service, and now there is a new entrant to the market: Electronic Engineering Jobs. The new site, from the same publishers as Electronic Specifier, allows you to list jobs, have them emailed to prospective candidates and even bundles in adverts in Electronic Specifier digital magazine. Let’s just hope that the economic recovery proves strong, and that there are more than enough new jobs to support all the recruitment services in Europe!

Tags: Online

I remember the old days when publications could rely on recruitment to generate pages of print advertising. With the move to online recruitment, this is no longer true, but it’s good to see that some publications are still innovating to try to keep hold of as big a share of the recruitment spend as possible.

Electronics weekly has just updated its jobs site, with the aim of making it easier to find jobs that better match your interests. In addition to related jobs, the site will also use behaviour of other site users to recommend possible roles ("People who applied for this job, also applied for…").

Tags: Electronics Weekly, Online, UK

Having taken the unusual approach of launching a new publication without an editor in place (we are told they’ve had some freelance help), ElectronicSpecifier has announced the appointment of John Taylor as editor of their Digital Magazine.

John has a long history in the electronics industry, having previously been Editor of What’s new in Electronics and Managing Editor of Electronics Times, Editor of Electronics Manufacturing Products (EMP) and most recently freelance Editor of Electronics magazine. John has also had a spell working in PR, allowing him to see the industry from both sides of the fence.

With a circulation of 66,000 ElectronicSpecifier Digital Magazine has one of the largest distributions of any title in the European electronics media. It was also one of the first to make use of video content inside the publication. The appointment of a recognised editor is another step forward as this new title tries to disrupt the more established publications in our industry.

Tags: Digital Magazines, Editors, electronicspecifier, Online

You’ll sometimes hear the comment that publications in Sweden and Finland exist only to allow overseas companies to sell to the big customers in the region such as Nokia, Ericsson, ABB and Saab. It’s not true – at least according to Electroniktidningen, who has appointed Anne-Charlotte Sparrvik as sales manager for the region.

This has to be good news, reflecting the view of the publication that the market is recovering. Perhaps more interestingly they also cite a rapid growth in online advertising, which local clients have adopted in growing numbers over the last six months.

It’s great to see ETN doing so well, and from my point of view I’m delighted to be able to post such a positive story on Napier News after a fairly depressing time in the industry.

Tags: Elektronik Tidningen, Online, Sweden