Tech PR Smarts: 2011′s Most Influential Telecom Media
In the golden era of the 1990s, telecom journalism was a specialty unto itself. Every major daily had its own scribe who wrote about nothing but wireline, mobile and ISP services. No longer. After a decade of consolidation it’s now possible to count the main service providers on your fingers and toes, maybe minus a foot. As a result, and owing to their own consolidation, too, media tend to lump telecom reporting in with tech — with the exception of specialty telecom trades and blogs, of course.
Don’t confuse a condensed comms industry headcount with size. There may be fewer players, but they’re bigger and do much more now: fiber to the home (FTTH), wireless apps, enterprise cloud services, mobile and TV shopping on the service side; edge hardware, smart phones and tablets on the hardware and device side — to name just a few items that weren’t around in the 90s. In the U.S. alone, annual revenue from landline and wireless service (including mobile advertising and apps) and equipment sales blew by the $1.0 trillion mark this year. Worldwide, make that $3.0 trillion. Growing up alongside the service providers — an army of B2B vendors offering BSS, OSS and CRM solutions to carriers. These vendors have experienced their own growth and consolidation, and are closely followed by trade media and analysts.
The industry is bigger and badder and impacts the lives of nearly every man and woman who treads the planet. Telecom changes more quickly than ever before, too. Ergo covering the sector remains one of the most vital, challenging and fast-paced jobs in journalism. Without further ado or preamble, here in no particular order are our picks for 2011′s most influential telecom journalists:
- General Business — Cecilia Kang, Washington Post; Eric Savitz, Forbes
- FCC & National Policy — Amy Schatz, Wall Street Journal
- Gadgets — Nick Bolton, New York Times “Bits”; Rob Peg0raro
- State & Rural Business/Policy — Joan Engebretson, Connected Planet
- Wireless — Warner Crocker, Gottabemobile
- Back Office/Front Office — Alex Leslie, Connected Planet; Tim McElligott, B/OSS
- Cloud Services — Chirag Mehta, Cloud Computing
- Cable/TV Everywhere — Debra Baker, Communications Technology
- News, Commentary, CEO Profiles, Random Cool Stuff — Rob Powell, Telecom Ramblings
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