In a widely-expected move, Electronique and Electronique International are to merge, forming a new title, ElectroniqueS. Given the state of the advertising market, and other factors specific to France, the move is a logical one, with the new title resembling a relaunched Electronique, although the editorial content will be bolstered with material to appeal to management, purchasing and other non-design engineer readers.

The good news is that the frequency will be higher than Electronique, with “at least” three specials enhancing the basic 11 issues per year. The publishers also promise a free digital version, and I wonder whether this might be a route to expand the circulation beyond the relatively modest 10,000 that are planned for the launch.

In the French market it’s no surprise that ElectroniqueS is not going with an aggressively low-priced rate card. In fact advertising rates are higher than Electronique both in terms of the page rate and the cost per thousand.

The website electronique.biz is already a single port of call for everyone in the French electronics industry, so there are only a few changes such as the addition of white papers.

Online display advertising continues to be offered on a sponsorship, rather than cost-per-impression, basis.  Disappointingly the online rates have also increased, whilst traffic growth appears to have slowed – May and June both showed a increase of less than 10% over the previous year, much lower than the previous few months.

The new white paper service offers a guaranteed number of downloads, with the contacts that download provided as leads., It’s great to see that there is a guarantee of a minimum number of leads, although at around €100 per lead, the cost is higher than many in the electronics industry are willing to pay.

The daily and weekly news emails will continue, and new vertical newsletters will be launched. Embedded and Display will both have monthly newsletters, whilst quarterly emails will be issued about automation and telecom/RFID.

Overall I think that the print and online offering looks good. It will be sad to see France drop to just two mainstream titles, with no news title, which must offer great opportunities for someone to launch an online-only title in the country. I’ve seen this happen in the French IT press, so it would not surprise me if we see some new launches. It’s disappointing to see the prices edge up, and arguably value for money drop when measured in terms of cost per impression. ElectroniqueS will doubtless be the premier title in the market with a strong editorial team, and so I’m sure it will be a success. The high rates, however, may present an opportunity for an aggressive push for market share from EPN France.

We are still waiting for the editorial team to be finalised – check back at Napier News for all the latest!

Tags: Advertising, Digital Magazines and Print Publications, Electronics, Electronique, ElectroniqueS, Email, EPN, ESE, France, Newsletters, Online, USA

A couple of interesting stories from the wonderful Marketinglaw site (NB registration required for both these stories). The FTC has made the first prosecution of a company over failing to meet safe harbour requirements for personal data exported from the UK. With much of the technology industry driven from the US, it’s important that companies understand the legislation covering export of personal data outside of the EU.
MarketingLaw also highlights the change of legislation in the Netherlands, where all email marketing must be on an opt-in basis from 1st October 2009.

Tags: Misc Marketing, Netherlands, USA

Despite the recent launch of Power Systems Design North America, the print industry is continuing to delcline in the USA. I was sad to see PC Magazine stop its print edition, although it is great to see that ZD will continue to publish a digital magazine as well as offering the website. I’m convinced this is the way forward for many magazines, and personally I expect to see at least one European electronics title move to publishing only in digital format during the current economic downturn.

Tags: Online, USA

Hearst Electronics Group, has announced that they have acquired ElectronicSpecifier.com. I think this is a pretty obvious move for both parties – Hearst gets a stronger presence in Europe and Electronic Specifier gets a stronger sales team in the US and can be included in packages that cover sites in Europe, the US and China.

Other benefits include Electronic Specifier selling advertising all the Hearst Electronics properties in Europe, greatly improving their representation in Europe and presumably a nice cheque to the owners of Electronic Specifier!

Tags: Online, USA

Power Systems Design will be launching into North American at APEC in February 2009, giving the publishers, AGS Media Group, the power electronics media franchise with broadest geographical reach. The title will have a 32,000 circulation, and will be edited by Cliff Keys (who will also continue to edit PSDE).

The launch coincides with changes at competitive title Power Electronics Technology as David Morrison steps down as editor in chief (he has been replaced by Sam Davis).

This is a pretty gutsy move: obviously the recession and the problems within the US-based media have passed AGS Media Group by! I’d like to think it will also turn out to be inspired: if you can make a business work in a down market, then it should boom when the market turns. Some clients do like the convenience of global titles, and from a competitive point of view it may turn out to be just the right time. Most of all, I’m pleased to see publishers investing in new publications reaching more engineers: this has to be welcomed by anyone who wants to get their message out to the electronics industry.

Tags: Digital Magazines and Print Publications, PSDE, USA

I was fascinated to read about the attendance for IPC Printed Circuits Expo, Apex and the Designers Summit, an event that was held from 1-3 April in Las Vegas, in EM&T Worldwide. You oten hear complaints at exhibitions along the lines of “it was so quiet that the only people walking the floor were other exhibitors”. This statement was half-correct for this event, which attracted 5,102 visitors, a figure that was almost matched by the 4,174 exhibitors. Does this mean the event was a disater? Of course not: in fact many of the exhibitors (including some of Napier’s clients) at the event would have been selling to other exhibitors. Even so, it will be interesting to see the response when a show does attract fewer visitors than exhibitors.

Tags: Shows and Events, USA

With many European involved in AdvancedTCA, I thought it was worth highlighting the call for papers for the AdvancedTCA summit, which hope to be “Bringing Today's Computing Power to Embedded Applications"”. A one-page proposal is due by 30th June, and anyone selected to present will be booking a trip to Santa Clara in October to attend the event.

Tags: Shows and Events, USA

The media world really is having a tough time, particularly in the USA: Ziff Davis Media has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in order to restructure its operations and pay down its debt. Maybe ZD hadn’t always made the best decisions, but it is sad to see publications I have read for years failing financially. Chapter 11 does work for many companies, so I’m hoping ZD will successfully emerge from bankrupcy protection.

Tags: USA

It’s often easy to underestimate the difference between British and American editors, but recent research from our friends at Hart Boillot that analyses the attitudes of a group of editors and journalists working in the high-tech and healthcare industries shows serveral findings that will be familiar to people working in the UK.

Tags: USA

Starting with the November 27th edition, EE Times is offering a one click PDF download option, as well as the online reader. Although this might seem like a step back to the days when the electronic version was distributed by QMags, we think this is a really good move, allowing an archive of old issues to be kept, and accessed in the industry-standard PDF format. Click here to see the online version.

Tags: EE Times, USA