In case you missed it ...

John Ford at the DFTDigest blog asked a question about the EE Times Edge, like, what is it?   He figured it out, but for the rest of you who might have missed a big change in the electronics media, the EE Times newspaper we have enjoyed for many years has gone away.  It has been replaced by the Edge, a magazine format analysis publication.  You won't find product announcements and news anywhere but online at EETimes.com and their associated DesignLine sites.  In fact, pretty much the only news you will find are your rewritten news releases.


It costs less because there is less paper so TechInsights will make more profit off the publication.  The editors are not going to be taking meetings with you to discuss your product announcements and little victories because they are going to be looking at the big picture now.  You're going to have to demonstrate how you fit if you want to talk to them.  Personally, I think the 'zine is dynamite.  Especially check out Loring Wirbel's coverage of the VC world.

This is the present and future you've created.  Congratulations.

Comments

  1. Loring WirbelJuly 28, 2008 at 12:24 PM

    To be fair, Lou, about half the content of EET Edge and the printed edition have appeared during the previous week online. My VC pieces did, and this week there were pieces with embedded video on the CDMA Development Group, that might very well be in the next EET EDge. So it's not completely fair to say daily online coverage consists of rewritten press releases, though the percentage of value-added online content has obviously been affected by the staff downsizing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lou CoveyJuly 29, 2008 at 6:09 AM

    Brian,

    What I've discovered over the past year is the fewer and fewer editors will take meetings to discuss company launches, product rollouts and investments, much less sales announcements, product updates and new funding rounds. All of those things used to be the bread and butter of the PR agency world because they were not always easy to get and required some skill and relationship. And it isn't just me I'm hearing this from. There are still a few editors that will take meetings at trade shows, but very few do anything more than rewrite the press release or post in in a weekly newsletter.

    Now that's not an absolute. Larger companies (i.e. those that are still advertising) seem to get more in depth coverage that startups and, in fairness, there are not a lot of really innovative startups out there, especially in the semiconductor industry niches. But overall, to get a meeting with an editor you have to be ready to discuss a larger issue that is being written about. The publications don't have staff or space to write about details anymore.

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