Computer Society Capitalizes on Its Content With New Curated Digest

IEEE Computer Society is trying a new approach to content delivery.

Last week, the society—one of many special interest groups within the world’s largest professional association dedicated to technological innovations—announced the launch  (opens in a new tab) of Computing Edge, a new monthly digest featuring original and curated content from 13 Computer Society magazines.

“Computing Edge highlights all of our individual magazines, exposing all our members to all our magazines’ content, regardless of whether or not they subscribe to any one publication,” said Evan Butterfield, IEEE Computer Society director of products and services.

The new publication will be available in both digital and print formats, which “lets us have a sampler of our publications to distribute at conferences, tradeshows, events, and meetings,” Butterfield said. “It’s hard to hand someone a pile of electrons.”

The digest will also help expose more society members to the wide array of its publications. Additionally, because all IEEE Computer Society’s magazines converted to a digital delivery system this year, the print version of the new digest will serve as a reminder of what may be lying unread in members’ inboxes.

“Our experience with other products taught us the importance of having a tangible reminder in subscribers’ hands that a digital version is available—it’s very easy for people to forget to read something when it’s not lying around on their desk or coffee table,” Butterfield said. “So when our magazines went digital, we decided to create a print product that would serve that ‘reminder’ function, as well as highlight all of our magazine content in a single publication.”

An experienced editor will curate the content that makes it into each issue. Most content will consist of broadly appealing features, columns, opinion pieces, and other editorial formats that would interest both lay audiences and those with different levels and areas of technical expertise, Butterfield said.

“We hope that Computing Edge will serve as a convenient way for readers to see a sample of the excellent content from all IEEE Computer Society magazines,” she said.

(IEEE Computer Society)