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By Maury Wright, Editor in Chief -- EDN, 10/16/2003

As they say in my native South, I've got some 'splaining to do. We've done a poor job of telling you about the many things that we offer online—such as archives. And we've alarmed some of you with talk of where we may go with our online offerings. Rest assured, the print edition of EDN is going nowhere but to your desk every two weeks. I know these statements come out of nowhere with no context, but recent feedback from readers drove me to make them right upfront. So please follow along and let me elaborate.

We at EDN always strive to serve you, the reader, and we've been asking you what you want in print and online through editorials and focus groups. Thanks so much for those who have responded to editorials by me, Bill Schweber, and Brian Dipert. And thanks to those who have attended or will attend a focus group. Your input has been and will continue to be invaluable.

Where to start? The print issue of EDN will remain our core offering, but first let's talk both brand-new and long-available edn.com features.

I know that many of you realize that we have archives available on our Web site, because we get a lot of traffic to those archives. But recent reader feedback tells me that many of you don't realize that you can go to edn.com and search through issues going back to 1994. In fact, you can go on the site, click on "archives," and find each complete issue. Or, you can use our site search to find specific articles in our archives. All we ask is that you register—for free—to access content that is older than two months. If you subscribe to one of our e-mail newsletters and have cookies enabled, you are already registered and will never even see a registration wall when you access our archives.

Now to recent additions to edn.com. We just completed a relaunch of the site that we think is more graphically appealing and that, more important, gives you more information more regularly. Our new EDN Today module includes a daily updated mix of recent material with each article accessible via a single click. We're identifying the most popular recent articles for your perusal. And we are producing more Leading Edge articles that cover key industry technologies than ever. Many of these items run only on the Web site or in our e-mail newsletters, so come visit often.

We have a cadre of technology-centric e-mail newsletters that we push to interested parties. Our offerings include analog-, power-, EDA-, and convergence-centric vehicles, and more are due soon.

Although we are committed to the print EDN, we want to make it available in the most convenient forms possible for those that prefer the online world. Each time we add a print issue, we send an EDN Online newsletter as a virtual table of contents to the Web site. And we believe that when you connect to the Internet, our Web site offers the best in online access.

Many of you, however, have asked to take your online EDN with you. And, although wireless technologies are moving at breakneck pace, we can't push an entire EDN to your PDA in the near term. We can offer you the ability to receive your EDN subscription digitally—as a download that lives on your computer. Download your issues to your notebook, and you can take them with you.

We offer the digital edition of EDN to readers as an option. No one will force you to give up the print. But for the mobile ones among us, digital delivery may be attractive. We've gone to great lengths to make Digital EDN as user friendly as possible. Yes, you have to download a reader. We evaluated other technologies that didn't require a reader download but went with a scheme that delivers optimal quality and lets you see complex graphics, such as schematics. Yes, the Zinio platform that we are using requires a fast PC, but you can turn off features, such as page-turning animation, to improve performance on an older system.

Unfortunately, government regulations on controlled-circulation magazines mean you must choose either audited print or digital delivery, but not both. We may be able to offer print subscribers the option to buy a digital subscription at a nominal cost. Would you be interested?

Thanks again to all who've shared their opinions. Keep the feedback coming.

Contact me at mgwright@edn.com.

 

 

 



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