Welcome to PR Vibes, created by Calysto Communications to provide you with insight into the publications and events in the communications industry. Today, we re-visit Wireless Week and bring you a short interview with Holly Hoffer, publisher of Wireless Week, and Andrew Berg, the new editor-in-chief, about WW’s coverage, features and latest offerings. What’s the editorial mission of Wireless Week? Wireless Week provides intelligent, incisive and in-depth information addressing the people, companies, technologies and ideas that are transforming the wireless industry through daily news, online features and print features, and we have been uninterrupted for 17 years. Wireless Week’s range of products provides a forum for analysis, thought leadership and debate among wireless business professionals, while continuously equipping them for the ongoing transformation of their markets and environments. Can you break down your editorial content, including social media and video? We’ve always focused on the carrier, but, as we all know, the wireless industry is so much more than that. One trip to CES and you realize that the networks and connectivity are the future backbone of so many industries being forced to evolve. That said, our features, hard news, Q&As, webinars and reviews cover a range of industry topics and products. We also publish contributed articles from notable voices. As for social media, we’ve have a strong following on both Twitter and Facebook. We also recently deployed an Android app, as well as a mobile website (which are both works in progress). Our site is slated for a complete CMS overhaul very soon, which will include a polished mobile site to make it easier for users to view Wireless Week content on their smartphones and tablets. What are your readership demographics?
- Wireless Week print magazine reaches more than 30,000 North American decision makers, executive level management at the wireless service providers, enterprise users, OEMs and developers and retailers, four times a year. We know that certain features and editorial are still best read and absorbed in print. The same holds true for ads, certain messages and goals that are best delivered in print as well.
Business categories breakdown: 71% Carriers/network providers; 29% enterprise end-users, OEMs, developers and retail. Titles: 50% C-level/executives; 23% engineering/network/IT/technical management; 14% engineering/network/IT/technical staff; and 13% sales, marketing and purchasing.
- FirstNews, the daily newsletter from Wireless Week, offers the latest on the day’s breaking news. It reaches 40,000 subscribers via email daily, and this audience very closely mirrors our print audience in demographics and geography.
All North American audience, with business categories breakdown: 69% carriers/service providers and 31% enterprise end-users, OEMs, developers and retail businesses. Titles: 46% C-level/executives; 20% engineering/network/IT/technical management; 20% engineering/network/IT/technical staff; and 14% sales, marketing and purchasing.
- Wirelessweek.com receives more than 470,000 unique visitors and more than 1 million page views a month, with 21% international visitors (outside the U.S. and Canada) and constantly updated industry coverage. The site offers news, in-depth web exclusive features, editor blogs, industry video and audio clips, industry opinion columns, white papers and archived webcasts. We offer traditional banner advertising, rich media ads, sponsored blogs, sponsored videos, white papers, custom eblasts and live webinar events.
The site is the culmination of all Wireless Week content; all print content ends up on our site in archives, daily news, Show Daily content (CTIA and 4G World) and original web only exclusives; the whole of editorial that our brand produces. Is there anything about your product offerings that you’d like to elaborate on, such as your e-newsletter strategy, Webinars, or blogs? We are continually adding to our product offering to meet the needs of our readers and our advertisers. We’ve recently partnered with iGR Inc. to offer sponsored research, as well as launched a “Messages from the Top Executive” views eblast product. We’re striving to keep up with the changes in the demands of the market and trying to tailor new ways for wireless companies to get their message in front of prospective customers. What do you think sets Wireless Week apart from other industry media, including print and online? Holly: We differ from the competition by providing in-depth coverage in print and online and not just the news, whether news is written by us or aggregated. Andrew: I would agree with Holly. I feel like the time and energy we put into our online and print features really adds depth to the publication. The news cycle moves so fast these days that it’s challenge for anyone to really get to the bottom of a given topic when it first breaks. Our features allow us to return to an issue and get perspectives from all sides of a topic. What are some of the key topics you plan to cover over the next year? Andrew: The last couple of months have been big ones for this industry. We’re finally seeing LTE rollouts happening on a massive scale. The OEMs, particularly RIM and Nokia, are fighting for their lives, which reveals the survival-of-the-fittest battle over mobile platforms. The ITU is now getting involved in “peace talks” around the raging patent battles. Security and privacy are issues that regulators are bringing to the forefront, so we’ll have to see whether that results in tighter regulation or if the industry is left to police itself through better standards and guidelines. I have to give kudos to my colleague Maisie Ramsay for closely following the dramas happening in the DOJ and FCC around spectrum swaps, and mergers and acquisitions. These are all stories without endings, and I’m sure they’ll continue to play out in the coming year. Andrew, as the new editor-in-chief, we’d love to hear more about you. I have two wonderful kids, Daisy and Harper, that keep me pretty busy when I’m not at work. My first love is writing fiction, and when I’m not running after the kids, I’ve been toiling over a novel like every other journalist. My wife and I like to be outdoors with the kids and our yellow lab, Dexter. Imagine if you will, a family of four, and a Marley-like yellow lab, all packed into a canoe. Let’s just say every trip is an adventure and there’s no guarantee that you’ll be dry when you arrive at the dock.