A Change of Course

Unstrung adapts to changing times in the wireless industry

December 5, 2006

3 Min Read
Light Reading logo in a gray background | Light Reading

The big news today is that the nominee for U.S. Secretary of Defense, testifying before Congress, actually admitted the obvious.

Naah, that's not really the subject of this column. What I do want to write about is that the editors of Unstrung have spent long hours closeted in an undisclosed secure location, poring over reader response data, story-traffic patterns, and deep industry research by our crack team of analysts, and admitted the obvious ourselves: We need to change course. Not cutting-and-running, mind you – only slight changes, and in some ways that might not be completely obvious to our longtime readers, but that will give you a richer experience, more useful information presented in more accessible and engaging ways, and more value for your subscription dollar. (Which of course is zero, since we don't charge for Unstrung, but you get the idea.)

To quote our resident éminence grise, Founding Editor Peter Heywood, "Telecom services, and the wireless and wireline networks over which they run, are undergoing a metamorphosis. As a result, coverage of them in Unstrung and Light Reading requires constant monitoring and occasional adjustment."

We're undergoing one of those occasional adjustments. Here's what you can look forward to on the updated Unstrung over the next few months:

  • More industry-focused coverage. Since I joined Unstrung a year ago, we've put a lot of effort into covering the enterprise – how IT managers are purchasing, deploying, and using wireless network infrastructure, software, and devices. We'll continue to provide case studies of important and instructive wireless deployments – many of them suggested by you, Dear Reader – but we are returning more to our roots in providing the most up-to-date, authoritative, and inside reporting on the carriers, service providers, and vendors that make up the wireless industry. We believe that's what our readers have historically come to Unstrung for, and this change will bring us closer to Light Reading, our sister publication. Which leads to...

  • Tighter integration with Light Reading. Both visually and editorially, you'll see more coordination and cooperation between the two Websites. To the extent that there's been a sharp division between the two publications, that wall will to a large extent dissolve, contributing more depth and breadth to each publication and benefiting readers of both Unstrung and Light Reading.

  • More commentary from industry experts. We have a deep pool of analytical talent at our research services, Heavy Reading and Unstrung Insider. In the next year you'll see us drawing on and presenting their insights in a much more consistent and direct way.

  • More focus on what's hot. This sounds like a no-brainer, but after more than 10 years of covering business and technology, I've learned that no prefabricated schema can match up on an ongoing basis with what's actually happening out there in the real world. We see three main currents or channels of coverage into which, in a general way, most of our stories will fit: service providers, enterprise deployments, and municipal networks. In practice, of course, these categories often overlap, and we'll continue to cover hot, breaking wireless news even if it doesn't obviously fit into one of those three boxes.



In the broadest sense, the editorial mission of Unstrung has not changed: to provide the sharpest daily coverage of the wireless industry available today, either in print or on the Web. I'll keep you posted in this column on the new editorial developments as they unfold, and we hope you'll let us know what you like and don't like about the changes. You can email us at [email protected].

— Richard Martin, Senior Editor, Unstrung

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