Then and now: www.controleng.com celebrates 10 years
| Control Engineering editors have amassed a huge resource of information over 10 years at www.controleng.com. Moving well beyond multiple print editions, the site helps subscribers and other readers do their jobs better to make manufacturing a more valued part of an efficient enterprise. |
Oak Brook, IL — Control Engineering launched its Website, at www.controleng.com , 10 years ago in August 1996 to serve its already Internet-savvy audience. At that time Control Engineering research showed that 97% of subscribers used PCs at work, 65% had Internet access, and of those, 88% went online weekly or more often to any industry site. Now 59% of www.controleng.com users polled say they use Control Engineering online weekly or more frequently, since its most recent redesign in April. ( Control Engineering , part of Reed Business Information , celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2004 .)
The website includes print issue archives through 1998, now makes updates with daily or greater frequency, and has over a million visits a year. Innovations in 1996 included a link to a group site for aggregated manufacturing information from other company publications and an online reader service card. In December 1996, several print articles offered extra information online. Now more than 200 archived articles, departments, and news items offer “Online Extra” information that did not originally appear in print. January 1997 began the “Cyberpage,” a department-page review of online efforts by Control Engineering and others in the industry. Today, the third table of contents page in every issue mentions a small fraction of what’s new every month on the site. (Incidently, that first Cyberpage touted the Control Engineering Forum, which was a Web log (blog) before anyone knew to call it that.)
Site content quickly grew beyond Control Engineering print edition; in 1997, editors began putting news and products online in real time, then taking the best of that for use in print. While most publications drastically reduced the amount of information they offered through the lean manufacturing years early this decade, Control Engineering consistently created more, augmenting print intelligence with a diversity of online efforts.
The site now has numerous opportunities for interaction: including links to five other unique international editions, Webcasts, more than a dozen email newsletters per month (average circulation 50,000), online magazine renewal and registration, online buyer’s guide , Automation , IAN Inside Products er information to help those interested in control engineering, automation, instrumentation, and manufacturing efficiency to do their jobs better.
Find what you need at www.controleng.com , still innovating after 10 years! For more information about the global resources of Control Engineering , see www.controleng.com/mediainfo.
— Mark T. Hoske , Control Engineering editor in chief
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