commbasics

One last note about the changes at UBM... there will be more.  I mentioned in the last post that the recent layoffs were due to redundancy more than finances, but one thing I left out was whether there was redundancy in the publications. The question in my head was, “Is EE Times going to go away?” Here's my reasoning.   EDN and EE Times were major competitors for years, now they are in the same family and covering much the same thing.  In fact, some of it seems to be covered in Design News .  EE Times was kept alive when EBN was shuttered and took over much of what EBN covered.  Now EBN is back.  The in depth coverage that EE Times was known for has been put into EE Times Confidential.  So with the reasoning that the layoffs were to eliminate redundancy, wouldn't it make sense to fold the remaining staff into EDN and EBN and just shutter EE Times online? I put the question point blank to UBM CEO Paul Miller. “I actually see this differe...

When you hear of journalistic treasures like Nic Mokhoff, Barbara Jorgenson and Bolaji Ojo going out the door at a media house, you tend to think the worse for the company.  I know I did after hearing about the "spring cleaning" at UBM.  Closer inspection, however, shows the reasoning behind the move. UBM Electronics seems to be in a constant state of change over the past decade because the media world has been evolving rapidly over that time.  The latest obvious change is the elimination of the print version of EE Times , in favor of an all online presence.  The problem is that there have been, essentially two staffs for the online and print operations.  When the latter was shut down, that left a lot of redundancy and unnecessary cost (from an accounting perspective). EE Times and EBN have built a significant infrastructure out of contractors, including Brian Bailey, Max Maxfield and Douglas Alexander, to provide content.  They are prolific...

This year started out with a lot of activity and it hasn't slowed down.  i haven't had much time to look into the changes over at the UBM Electronics group, though most of you already know that Barb Jorgenson at EBN, and Nic Mokhoff, George Leopold and Sylvie Barack were among those let go just before DesignCon in Santa Clara.  But just a few minutes ago I got the EE Life newsletter with Brian Fuller announcing he was changing hats yet again in UBM and moving into the editor-in-chief position at EBN? So what happened to former EiC Bolaji Ojo?  No clue.  Could mean he's going to focus more on the fledgling EE Times University .  In the past couple of times I've talked to him, and from others involved in the effort, I know he's been putting a lot of time into that project.  I'm hoping that's the case. But I'm concerned about the overall product of all three operations, now.  That was a significant shift in resource...

Native video ads, which are promotional content made to look like editorial or entertainment content, have been a popular medium for technology companies.  They are often in the form of a video interview of a corporate executive about their wonderful product or service. More often then not they are produced by the company rather than third-party media. A recent survey , however, showed that 86% of viewers found these video ads misleading. Moreover, 85% found the units either negatively impacted or had no influence on their perception of the brand.  That’s why Footwasher Media has committed to produce content with editorial integrity. Your product or service is not what your customers care about.  They care about their problems and are looking for practical solutions that may or may not include what you provide.  Moreover, they want to know what your competition says about the same thing, so adding balance to your content (that is, valid competitive benefits) can ...

  To sum up our series today on the death of journalism as we know it, there is less and less independent analysis from the free press due to budgetary constraints.  Consumers are relying more and more on online content, especially video , to make their decisions but they still want objective content.  Businesses that understand this are turning to ethical journalism and sponsoring it directly to establish themselves as trusted sources of content.  The tech world is taking baby steps in this direction.  Xilinx and Altera hired former print journalists to manage in-house publications sent to current customers.  Cadence Design took a step further hired a journalist to manage blog content specifically to promote the companies products and services, but the efforts focus only on current customers. Larger companies, like Pepsi , offer a section of the website devoted only to pop culture, not products.  Digikey , in contrast, offers industry news...

    Last week we looked at how journalism, as we have known it (pretty much free) has died because no one was willing to support it through advertising anymore.  Today we cover what it means for us. There are two primary issues to be concerned with.  First, as a consumer of content, you will be responsible for the financial support of the media you consume. if you don't want to pay for it, you will be subjected to an unending stream of commercial material created by marketing teams, not actual information. So while the money for that information may come out of a company, you will pay for it by watching advertising 24-7. If you are willing to pay for it through subscription, you will end up putting out about $500 a year to get a variety of content from specific sources (at $99 a pop).  There wills till be ads surrounding the content, but the content itself will be objective.  However, you will also be enlisted to market for the publication e...

By Lou Covey, Footwasher Media CEO   Yeah, I mean you -- the readers, the advertisers, the management of the industry and the journalists .  We’ve all played a part in killing it.  This is not just my opinion.  Just two weeks ago the Tow Center for Digital Journalism issued an exhaustive report on the death of the industry .  Last week the 40-year-old EE Times announced they were dropping the free print edition of the publication and would only offered paid subscription to the EE Times Confidential.  This week, the Washington Post announced their online content would now be offered through a pay wall.  But when it comes to my opinion, I’ve been predicting this for 10 years, and in the specifics, since I started this blog in 2006 . Communications Basics has been watching the demise of the industry for a long time and not with glee but pragmatism.  The web and social media were instrumental in this outcome but our lack of understanding how all th...