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Showing posts from August, 2007

Taking "mass" out of mass communications

We'll be getting back to interviews with the press in a few weeks once we get the times scheduled. This week's podcast is me, again, pontificating about the effect of the internet on journalism link . It's worth considering. Brian Fuller was talking about the state of content in the media on Greeley's Ghost (link on this page), which is worth your time. Oh, and we have reached agreements with journalists to provide content for New Tech Press. Cheryl Ajluni, Dylan McGrath and Greg Lupion are on board. More to come.

Latest change and a clarification

Just heard that Greg Lupion, long time exec editor for EE Times, just had his job eliminated. Greg was the guy that coordinated the efforts of editors all over the globe for EE Times and made their writing better as the chief copy editor. But the reduction of the editorial force made his job redundant. Stay tuned, folks, Good stuff is happening. Also, the primary question that has come back on the podcast last week is, "So what does this mean?" So let me lay it out. When it starts publication this fall, New Tech Press is the ONLY publication in the United States that features news stories about EDA, Fabless Semiconductor, Semiconductor IP, or Embedded Technology companies with revenues under $50 million dollars on a regular basis. The rest of the trade media that covers those industries will produce only a few features a year that will cover less than 5 percent of the industry. The rest of the coverage in those publications will come from contributed articles or three-pa...

Time for revolution

There will be a lot of money spent on marketing in the United States this year, according to Adweek and other media watchers. More than $600 billion. That's even more than is at risk right now in subprime mortgages. More than $200 billion of that will be spent on advertising alone and $20 billion on public relations according to PR week. That's real money. Technology startups are in that mix and the big spenders are in Web 2.0, green tech, and bio. In fact, of the 5000 technology startups in the US (that number comes from Dow Jones) the average amount spent by tech startups is $20,000 per month. That's the mean average, not the median. When I read that (Blackfriars) I said, "Where the heck are those companies?" My agency never sees budgets like that because we live on the bottom end of the of the sampling...fabless semiconductors, electronic design automation, embedded electronics/software. Those guys don't really believe in PR or advertising. In fac...

Brian Fuller lands on the dark side

Just heard over the weekend that Brian Fuller, erstwhile EiC of EETimes, has taken a position at Blanc and Otus. His reasoning is published at his Blog called Greeley's Ghost, which has a link at on this blog. Give Brian our best. Also, Richard Goering will be announcing is landing site next month.

A little reflection

OK, so my little podcast experiment, that was originally supposed to be one interview a month, really took off on me. We've been averaging 30 unique hits a day, which I understand is phenomenal for a blog. We'll probably slow down a bit until I line up a few more interviews. But let's take a look at what we've learned. The media isn't going anywhere anytime soon. They are still makeing money in many areas. But they've decided that where they are not making money, they are going to walk away. If you are in one of those industry niches that doesn't support a free press, too bad for you. But that doesn't mean that there are not going to be any opportunities to get your story out. You just have to decide whether you want to be like 80 percent of your market and just pump press releases onto Yahoo and Google, or if you want to make an investment in doing something more. If you are in the latter group, here's a few thoughts from me on the subject. ...

Only a fool....

The August 13 issue of Forbes has an article ( link and you gotta be a member to read it) about a tiny company in the UK making CCTV video analytics). The company has *great technology* but no marketing. They are scraping by on VC money and hoping for a big CCTV camera company will buy the software. The CEO has had several companies, none of which did any marketing (i.e. advertising and PR) and all have failed. On the last page of the article, an analyst says, "Only a fool thinks the industry will be won by the best technology." Hmmm. Where have I heard that before? "Technology, no matter how great or innovative, does not make a product successful. Marketing is the key. A mediocre product with good marketing will always beat a great technology with mediocre marketing." Lou Covey, State of the Media, July 2005.