F Napier News - News from the European Electronics Media

Tuesday, October 28

Napier News has moved

After 732 posts on blogger I've decided to move to using Wordpress. If you want the latest news about the European electronics industry, visit NapierNews.eu or sign up for our email newsletter.

Tuesday, September 30

Circuits. Circuits. Circuits

I really like the approach Electronics Weekly's website takes to repackaging content to add value (isn't this the definition of what it means to be a good editor?). They've just started pulling together circuit ideas and diagrams in the rather obviously-named "Electronics Weekly Circuits Section". Although "in beta", the site is already looking good, taking mostly existing content and presenting a new way to view and navigate that will help ensure readers find useful information on every visit.

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Monday, September 29

Chris Shaw appointed deputy editor of New Electronics

Chris Shaw has joined New Electronics as deputy editor. Chris is well known from his time at MMG Publishing, where he was editor of Electronics Sourcing and Electronics Assembly.

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Friday, September 26

Tim Fryer takes on Managing Editor role

Congralutations to Tim Fryer, who has taken on the role of managing editor for both EPD and Electronics Manufacture and Test. Tim has edited EM&T for many years and brings enormous experience with him. IML is currently looking for a Technical Editor to support Tim on EPD.

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Tuesday, September 23

ABCe launch enhanced certificate

I still seeing a lot of websites self-auditing, despite the need for cirulation audits being well established for print titles. Although this move is no doubt going to have most impact in the consumer secotr, I was interested to see ABCe announce enhanced certificates, where audit information will be supplemented by demographic information that is collected through a survey. With no qualification criteria, websites can see search engines driving traffic that doesn't add value to advertisers. Although I don't expect to see a pile of these enhanced certificates arriving in my inbox, I think this is part of a trend where advertisers are trying to get a better understanding of the quality as well as the quantity of people who are viewing their online ads. This has to be a good thing, both for advertisers who want to advertise to people who are interested in their products and also for website owners who should ultimately be able to charge a premium for higher-quality eyeballs!

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Monday, September 22

Techinsights gives Richard Wallace leading role

Richard Wallace, Vice President/Editor-in-Chief of TechInsights has been given the role of leading the combined global content teams at EE Times and TechOnline, providing a focus that I believe will continue to drive TechInsights forward in the electronics market.

TechInsights has also made Colin Holland a staff editor and given him two titles (isn't one enough Colin?). He is Editor-in-Chief - Embedded as well as holding the role of Senior Editor on EE Times Europe. Congratulations to both Colin and Richard.

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AgLa readership survey finally released

After months of talking, the results of the AgLa survey are finally out. This is the study sponsored by E&E, Elektronik Informationen, Elektronik Industrie, Elektronik Praxis and Elektronik Journal to answer the Weka-sponsored La Elfa study.

So who were the winners and losers? Well not surprisingly the raw readership results are less flattering for the three Weka titles than La Elfa, although unsurprisingly even this study still shows M&T as the title with the highest reach. Elektronik Praxis does well, beating Elektronik to have the second-highest reach. Elektronik Industrie is another winner, "beating" D&E. In this study respondents are asked about the pan-European titles, which don't score well, although EPN gets the highest readership (who says product books are dead!).

So what does this mean? Well like all studies this one isn't the perfect solution to media planning - like all the others it provides useful information, but also can't be the perfect answer. Even if the surveys were perfect, we still wouldn't plan a media schedule by blindly chasing the highest reach (and there should be a special mention for Elektronik Informationen, which was the first title to contact me about the study, and to highlight the positive conclusions you can draw about the title from the study). Why not contact me for a more detailed comparison of the two surveys?

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Friday, September 19

Electronics Sourcing Europe claims successful launch

MMG Publishing has told us that the November 2008 launch issue of Electronics Sourcing Europe will run to 126 pages, an impressive feat for the first issue, even allowing for the boost in interest because of electronica. In addition to exceeding pagination expectations, MMG has expanded circulation to 31,000, and promise that they will have 35,000 readers "soon". Who says publishing is dying?!

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ElectronicsTalk appoints new editor

Dave Wilson is the new editor of ElectronicsTalk, replacing Laurence Marchini who has gone on to new projects, but will still work with Pro-Talk as a consultant

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Thursday, September 18

Innovation means quality????

I have to confess that I didn't blog this earlier as I wasn't sure whether someone was winding me up... But it's not a joke, Electronics Weekly really has launched "Chips and Beer", a guide to pubs and other places to "get a decent pint". OK, it is innovative, but whether the traffic it delivers to the EW website is going to represent the advertisers' target sudience has to be pretty questionable.


25th Sept - Response from Electronics Weekly
I received this response to the above story from Alun Williams of EW. I think he makes some good points, particularly the way he separates the blogs as being "different". He also points out that EW is trying to innovate and experiment, something I have highlighted in Napier News and definitely support. I've pasted in the full text of his reply.

The main thrust of my reply would be that the blog is about community more than anything else.

It is about an aspect of industry life that has not previously been addressed on the site - being out on the road, on a professional basis. We are hoping that readers who do take an interest in the blog - one of eight blogs on EW, I would emphasise, which cover a range of areas - will find the guide helpful.

The contents of the paper magazine already go online, so we add to the mix with other elements on the website. So, of course, this isn't core material but I do believe it still has a place.

David Manners, the man behind the blog was actually prompted by people within the industry to produce the guide, which is aimed squarely at the semiconductor business - we are hoping to gather recommendations for cities in Asia and off-the-main-tourist-beat US states, for example, rather than Tuscany or Provence.

In theory, readers might be able to research the places themselves on the Web, but I'd emphasise the community aspect - helping industry colleagues having to spend evenings away from home in far flung (potentially unwelcoming, unglamorous) places - how much better to rely on recommendation from industry peers?

On the point about search engines, I can honestly say this is not an SEO gambit to attract traffic. Rather, it's an attempt to further encourage electronic engineers to engage with the site. Just one new string in the EW.com bow. To be honest, we think it may be a slow burner - slowly word will get out, people may use the recommendations, then provide further feedback and then propose better alternatives - electronic engineers talking to electronic engineers. That's not a bad definition of community engagement.

To be honest, by their nature, blogs always evolve - either flourishing or alternatively fading away. We shall see, with this one, too. But we feel on Electronics Weekly we should definitely keep trying and innovating, always addressing - in different ways - needs of the electronics community.

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Monday, September 15

Where are the electronics blogs?

Electronics Weekly has launched their Electronics Blog Awards 08, which we think is a fantastic idea. In many ways the electronics industry has allowed blogging to pass it by. The suggestions made by EW for the shortlist reflects this, with most blogs dedicated to circuit ideas for hobbyists and a couple of blogs from major publishers (ZBNet and TechInsights).

Other tech sectors from networking to gadgets have a much stronger independent media, and it would be great to see a much larger blog community covering our industry. I don't want to discount blogs from large publishers (the always entertaining Mannerisms is always one of the first things I read), but I would love to see a range of different viewpoints like those on blogs by Chris Edwards and Nick Flaherty. If these awards encourage more people to create blogs like these, they will have been a real success.

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Thursday, September 11

Mike Richardson lands editorship of Aerospace Manufacturing!

Mike Richardson, who was previously at New Electronics, has been appointed editor of Aerospace Manufacturing. Mike promises to include "more embedded and systems-related electronics editorial content" in the publication, which should please many of the contacts he has build during his time working on electronics titles.

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Wednesday, September 10

MicroTCA Conference announced for November 2009 in Munich

Givent he success of the events in 2007 and 2008, it's not a big surprise that ICC Media will be holding their MicroTCA Conference in 2009. The event will be in Munch on 2nd and 3rd November, with more details avaialble here.

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Tuesday, September 9

Embedded Systems Show 2008 to feature live teardowns

The organisers of the Embedded Systems Show have heard the maxim that "engineers just can't resist taking things apart", and have responded by introducing the TechInsights live teardowns to the show. The Estes Micro-Tiger RC Helicopter and the X-Box Steering Wheel will be pulled apart by TechInsights "teardown experts" to reveal the "techniques and technologies that bring these products to life. The teardowns are a regular feature of TechInsights shows in the US and should prove a popular addition to the UK event.

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Saturday, September 6

Problem pictures

One of the challenges we sometimes face is getting a good high-quality image to accompany a news story or article. Having worked on the client side, as well as in an agency, I understand the challenges that companies sometimes face when trying to source images. One of the jobs of an agency is to make sure that unacceptable images don't get sent out, because this really does annoy editors - just take a look at this entry in Chris Edwards' excellent blog, Hacking Cough! Contact Napier for more advice about images to use with your PR.

Thursday, September 4

PCIM 2009 - call for papers

The organisers of PCIM 2009 have issued a call for papers. Visit the PCIM website to submit your abstract, which are due by 20th October and must be submitted in a strictly-defined format.

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Sunday, August 31

Napier clients shortlisted for Elektra Awards

Congratulations to our clients, LEM, Vicor and Wittenstein high integrity systems who have all been shortlisted for an Elektra Award. We're looking forward to the awards dinner on Monday 10th November in Munich, and I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the finalists.

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Saturday, August 30

New research about distributors in Europe

In the past we've conducted research about the European electronics media that has given clients and publishers a better view of the way that European engineers obtain information about products. For our latest project, we decided to look at the way distributors are perceived by engineers and purchasers in Europe. This has been a fascinating project for me, as during my career I used distributors when I was an engineer, worked for a distributor and also worked for a manufacturer with an extensive distribution network.

Our research looks at the popularity of distributors by region, allowing comparisons to be made between local distributors, pan-European organisations and global players. Some of the key findings from the research include:

  • Stock availability is the most important factor in selection of a distributor - cited as being even more important than price, and the customer's relationship with the distributor's salesman the least important factor.

  • Customers believe that pan-European distributors with local resources gives them the best service. Interestingly a global player was more popular than a centralised pan-European distribution model. Only 16% believe that a local distributor that operates only in their country would give them the best service.

  • Almost everyone found distributor's marketing materials useful, and unsurprisingly catalogues and websites were identified as the most useful marketing information. One interesting result was that email newsletters had caused more people to contact a distributor than printed newsletters, maybe Europeans are slowly giving up their love of print!

  • Two thirds of the respondents buy online from distributors' websites, with half of these buying production quantities online.


    • We are currently finalising our summary and full reports. If you would like to get a copy of one of these reports, please email me.

    Friday, August 29

    Fun with Wordle


    You might have seen the concept of "word clouds", where words are picked out from text, with the most frequently-used ones given greater prominence. We've just found Wordle, a website that will produce a word cloud automatically from a website with an RSS or Atom feed - the picture above shows the results for the NapierNews.eu homepage. Nice!

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    Winner of iPod from Napier's distribution survey


    Congratulations to Jørn Poulsen, a Project Manager at Crysberg, who was the lucky winner of the iPod Touch from our distribution survey.

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