Monday evening I was moderating a panel on social media in the semiconductor industry and one of the panelists was Paul Miller, CEO of EE Times Group, a large electronics trade publisher with 1.1 million electronics industry decision makers.

EE Times this week completed a relaunch with a strong emphasis on user content. It has 70 moderators with a goal of recruiting more than 400 moderators.

"We're putting user content at the same level of importance as editorial content," said Mr Miller. "We are the only ones doing something like this."

The move reflects the importance of readers trusting the opinions of other readers. "Engineers like to help each other. But it is important to have high quality content and that's why we believe moderators are important to our success."

EE Times is an interesting media company to watch because it is one of the old school publishers, nearly 40 years old. It has worked hard to reinvent itself and it seems to be paying off.

"We're having our best year in a decade," says Mr Miller. "The pendulum has swing back towards what we are doing and companies are beginning to spend again."

EE Times Group has bolstered its business through many savvy acquisitions. Since 2007, Mr. Miller has spent more than $50m on acquisitions that include events and also a legal services firm in the IP area.

I mentioned that when people ask me what the new media business model will be I say it is a "Heinz 57" model -- 57 varieties of revenues.

"I totally agree," he says. "Some people think Africa is one country but it's a large collection of countries and cultures and that's how varied our business model has become."

He also said, "Content creation is hard. Finding interesting things to write about is very difficult. I have a new appreciation for content creators and we have begun hiring back some people as editors."

- - -

Additional Info:

EE Times unveils network redesign, resurrection of Electronic Buyer's News |

EE Times launches new website | Napier News

Paul Miller (Stumpy1964) on Twitter