What a year for media coverage of the controls, instrumentation and automation industry.
I left Automation World last year to try some new things. I just felt the itch to be creative again. Then Walt Boyes left Control magazine and bought the Industrial Automation Insider (subscriptions only).
Then, within the past two weeks were two acquisition announcements.
PMMI, the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute, acquired Summit Media Group–owner of Packaging World, Healthcare Packaging, and, oh yes, Automation World.
Now an entirely different association, ISA, has acquired Automation.com. The latter media company is digital only with a highly visited Website.
PMMI is an association of OEMs. ISA is an individual member organization. They are different types of organizations. But I’ll be interested to see how an association handles being a publisher.
I should point out that the ISA acquisition simply returns ISA to what it was before it downsized several years ago. ISA and Automation.com have had a close relationship, with the latter serving as the digital publishing arm of ISA.
With me writing at this media outlet, Walt with his new gig, Greg Hale (former editor in chief of Intech) now with his entrepreneurial effort at ISSSource, maybe things will get more interesting for readers. I hope so.