Hearst, IDG Partner to Buy Chinese Tech Site

Hearst Business Media and IDG have partnered in the acquisition of ee365.cn, a news and technology Web site targeting Chinese engineers. China’s Publishing House of Electronic Industry also was involved in the partnership. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In an e-mail to FOLIO:, Bill Barron, vice president and publishing director of Hearst Business Media’s Electronics Group, wrote that while there is some overlap content-wise ee365.cn is a compliment to 21ic.com, another Chinese-language tech site owned jointly by Hearst, IDG and PHEI. “We fully intend to meld it into 21ic.com over the coming months and as soon as possible into 2009 it should all be under the 21ic.com brand.”

Launched in June 2006, ee365.cn is divided into 21 channels based on industrial segments, including Embedded Systems, Power, Analog and Wireless. As part of the acquisition, ee365.cn will be managed by a collective group of owners, headed by executive publisher Daphne Liu and executive editor Qingchun Guo.

“This is our second acquisition in China with [IDG and PHEI] in the last two years, the first being 21ic.com about 18 months ago,” wrote Barron. “We have a very strong and complimentary working relationship with duties and value split evenly.”

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