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.

Engineers in Scandinavia are looking forward to a new event, S.E.E. (Scandinavian Electronics Event), which will be held in Stockholm from 13th to 15th April 2010. The event is planned to be held every two years, and I’m delighted that there are still event organisers prepared to create new shows.

It looks like the first S.E.E. will be a success as the organisers tell me that around 250 companies will be exhibiting! They also have some great new ideas for the show, including areas where stands are not allowed to have high separating walls, creating a very open environment. They have also chosen to place seminars and special exhibitions and displays right in the middle of the show, on an “activity street” that cuts through the middle of the exhibition. Putting the seminars and activities that draw visitors in the middle of the hall is really important to draw people past the exhibition stands, and can only help increase the meetings on exhibitors’ stands.

Current CPMs vary considerably. Let’s say that they run from €20 to €100. At this level advertisers can struggle to justify the investment, whilst publishers can only just pay the bills. Things are just about in balance, with publishers only able to cut prices if there is a huge increase in page views.

Then Opencores.org send me their media pack. OK, I completely accept that the Open Cores website has a very specific audience. Visitors to the site include include a higher proportion of students than magazine sites as well as engineers who are attractive to a relatively small group of advertisers (including the notoriously stingy EDA sector). But the rates for the site are crazy! Prices drop to €0.46 per thousand (you have to buy a sponsorship for a month, and the CPM is calculated based on the average impressions per month). About one hundredth of the rates you might get from a typical magazine site!

In reality I don’t expect Open Cores to change the pricing of “mainstream” sites. But if other user-generated content sites enter the market with very low rates, then publishers are going to find their CPMs under extreme pressure.

I think this is a pretty pragmatic approach. Although the culture of data protection might mean that a few of the new recipients don’t want the emails, I’m sure that most subscribers will find the content valuable and advertisers will be delighted to have another effective promotional vehicle in Scandinavia.

In the past you had a close partnership with TechInsights/CMP, but have remained very independent. What advantages are there of being a relatively small publisher?
Independence is important for many reasons. The most obvious one is the need to react quickly to changes. This is much easier in a small organisation. A small organisation also tends to be more efficient, which is very important these days.

How successful is the digital edition of Elektronik i Norden? Do you think digital delivery is the future of magazines?
The digital edition is doing OK. We’ve been running our own system for almost two years now and everything seems to be working nicely. Now it’s time to take a few more steps, but we’ll come back to that later.
Digital delivery is of course extremely important, but it doesn’t really replace the printed paper. New stuff seldom replaces old stuff (the telephone didn’t replace the railway, even though some people thought it would).
On the web we have an online edition plus a digital version of the paper. The digital version of the paper could be seen as a substitute for print, but in reality this is not the case. Maybe we will see 100 percent digital delivery in the future, but I’m not convinced.

Is it difficult to create a title for both print and digital delivery? Does the readability of the digital version suffer?
It’s not that difficult to create a title for both print and digital. The online edition is of course different and the digital version of the paper is quite readable on a normal screen. The tabloid size is not a problem.
This year has been tough for all publications in our industry, and Elektronik i Norden is one of the titles that has reduced print frequency. Can local-language titles service small markets survive?
Yes, it has been a tough year. But the reduction of print frequency is actually something we have been discussing for several years. Combined with the online edition, one printed paper per month is OK.
Local language titles makes a lot of sense. It would of course be possible to have a localised version of an international paper, but in reality it wouldn’t be much cheaper to produce (if at all). The electronic industry in our area is quite healthy and local presence and local content is vital.

Elektronik i Norden has been one of the pioneers in adding social media features, with the comments facility on your website. It seems, however, that many stories don’t attract comments. Do you think the comments are successful, and how do you decide this?
Social media features are nice, but we haven’t been pushing them up to now. I’m certain comments will be more common in the future, but probably not at all to the extent you see in the IT domain.

In similar industries such as IT, independent blogs have become a significant medium. Yet in electronics there are few independent blogs, with most blogs part of the online presence of a large publication. Why do you think electronics is different?
Again, the electronics industry differs quite a bit from the IT industry. This has always been the case. It might change a bit as the software content grows in the electronics industry.

What changes do you expect to see over the next three years in the European electronics media?
The online electronics media will mature over the next three years. Plus we might see a few “glorified blog sites”. News will probably still be the basis of the sites, but we will see more online workshops, online exhibitions and other new ideas where interactivity is important.
The future of the printed electronics media is harder to predict. It depends totally on the action of the advertisers. But from the reader’s perspective, I think a combination of print and online is essential. It’s so much faster to leaf through a paper and most of the time you really have no need for interactivity. Reading a technical article on the web takes at least twice the time compared to reading it in printed version. And if you want to read outdoors or on the bus/train there still isn’t an alternative to print.

What is the one thing you’d like to change about the way companies do PR in the electronics industry?
I would like the companies to check where the designs are actually made. Then they might realise the importance of using and supporting the European electronics press. Most European papers have a hard time and one way of cutting costs is to discontinue the printed version. I think this would be very bad for the electronics industry.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time, when you’re not writing about electronics?
There is so much to do and so little time to do it. I enjoy kayaking, sailing, cycling, reading, listening to music, carpenting and quite a few other things. And in a little while I will walk into my house and watch the latest episode of Simpsons.

What’s your favourite gadget?
My favourite gadget for the moment is probably my netbook. But I’m waiting for a much smaller and lighter version.

It’s great to see that Elektronik, and co-sponsors Rittal, are encouraging young engineers, and I hope that this award goes from strength to strength in the coming years.