UBM TechWeb Re-Launching Popular Byte.com

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 20, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- As the impact of cutting-edge personal technology continues to rise among professionals, UBM TechWeb, producers of InformationWeek, Web 2.0, Black Hat, and Game Developer Conference, will fuel its coverage by re-launching Byte.com and hiring trusted consumer technology expert Gina Smith.

Byte, which originally started in 1975, will serve as the professional's guide to consumer technology, providing news, analysis, reviews, and insight across the media gamut – from slide shows and video, to written columns and news commentary.  The site will launch in Q2 2011 as part of UBM TechWeb's growing digital portfolio.

Smith – a New York Times best-selling author, award-winning columnist and former network TV correspondent and talk radio host – will serve as editor and web TV personality for UBM TechWeb and InformationWeek's consumer technology coverage as part of the re-launch of venerable consumer tech publication Byte.com.

"I'm psyched to join this leading journalistic team, and honored to participate in the re-launch of Byte, one of the most respected media brands of all time," said Smith.

"IT is faced with new, pervasive user expectations – that all technology should work like the technology end users have at home, and that they can actually bring that technology into the work place," said InformationWeek editorial director Fritz Nelson.  "This includes smart phones, tablets, social networks, and a host of gadgets and productivity software.  IT needs to both manage and exploit the business value of these technologies."

Global electronics distributor Avnet, for instance, gives many U.S. employees a monthly allowance for wireless plans, and they can choose any device, with Avnet's IT organization providing support and various mobile applications.  "The business world now expects people to blur their work and personal lives, so this is a way to give more flexibility and choice to our employees," said Avnet Senior VP and CIO Steve Phillips.

"Our reader traffic logs repeatedly tell us that the enterprise audience has an intense interest in consumer technology," added UBM TechWeb chief content officer David Berlind.  "Whether those information needs have to do with the consumerization of business technologies or a personal interest in consumer technology, we need to keep feeding that demand.  Given Gina's extensive background in covering consumer and business technologies, as well as her experience working with text, still images, audio, video, print, and the Web, we couldn't have found a more qualified journalist and media personality to lead our coverage."

Prior to Byte.com's re-launch in Q2 2011, UBM TechWeb's coverage of consumer technology will be hosted in a personal technology section on InformationWeek.com, starting with Smith and other InformationWeek editors' blitz of the 2011 Consumers Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Smith is an industry veteran, having covered technology for CNET and Popular Science.  For a dozen years, she was a weekly columnist covering Silicon Valley for the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Edition.  She was ABC News' first-ever technology correspondent, appearing weekly on Good Morning America and World News Tonight, and regularly on Nightline and 20/20.  Smith's award-winning columns, Inside Silicon Valley and Ask Gina, were nationally syndicated, as was her weekly talk radio show, Connected with Gina Smith, via the ABC Radio Network.  Smith was CEO of the first Internet appliance company, serving on the board of Larry Ellison's New Internet Computer Company.  Over the last few years, she has focused mostly on writing books.  She co-wrote the New York Times best-seller "iWOZ" about Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.  Her book on the human genome, The Genomics Age, was a Barron's Book of the Year.

Smith lives in San Francisco.

About UBM TechWeb

UBM TechWeb, the global leader in technology media and professional information, enables people and organizations to harness the transformative power of technology. Through its three core businesses – media solutions, marketing services and paid content – UBM TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed brands and media applications in the technology market. More than 14.5 million business and technology professionals (CIOs and IT managers, Web & Digital professionals, Software Developers, Government decision makers, and Telecom providers) actively engage in UBM TechWeb's communities and information resources monthly. UBM TechWeb brands include: global face-to-face events such as Interop, Web 2.0, Black Hat and Enterprise Connect; award-winning online resources such as InformationWeek, Light Reading, and Network Computing; and market-leading magazines InformationWeek, Wall Street & Technology, and Advanced Trading. UBM TechWeb is a UBM company, a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.

SOURCE UBM TechWeb