— E-Mags: UBM is only dipping its toe here so far. Last year UBM created a Kindle version of its tech mag InformationWeek—it claimed to be the first B2B brand to launch on the platform. Levin thinks of this mainly as an “experiment” for now. “It’s too early to determine the value of it,” he says. “It was a controlled circulation title. Now we’re getting some to pay for it. Not enough yet, but it does prove people want to pay…We’ve got to do more with e-readers.”

Longer term, e-readers could prove to be an effective way of delivering publications to niche audiences while at the same time attracting the advertisers that are still wedded to the more graphic experience of print.

But ironically it looks like in 2010, even advertisers from tech-based industries, and the media agencies representing them, have yet to catch on to this idea. This could one reason why UBM hasn’t moved out of print altogether. “Advertisers are still working out how to respond to digital content,” Levin says. “There is still a debate between those who think a qualified subscriber [for a controlled circulation title] is more valuable, and that digital is no better than a click off Google (NSDQ: GOOG). Neither position is tenable in three-four years’ time. ” admits Levin. “[But for now] we still have to keep some commitment to print.

“Plus we’ve got genuine customers who like print mags full stop. Some of them have not got their heads around how to respond to digital content. So as long as they want us to produce the printed copy we’re going to do it.”

Levin says the “majority of what we’ve got left in print” are medical titles as well as a few titles in construction, property and tech. UBM’s big mantra here now is about being the “last man standing” in these areas—if they hold out long enough past their competitors, these mags may just have a chance of survival.

Still he says it is “inevitable that there will be further closures ahead.”

—Online paywalls: UBM, perhaps belatedly, is getting around to putting up more paywalls around its B2B sites. In February, MusicWeek and Building magazine both went behind a paywall, following an FT-style approach of offering a few articles free every month to bring in users.

Even paywalls for mags, though, look a little dated when compared to the other online publishing ventures Levin is excited about. He points to internetevolution, an online community for tech news that aggregates blog posts, video posts and other social-media content from its own stable of writers plus contributors from the industry. The site was founded by Stephen Saunders, who started up lightreading in 2000 and then sold it to UBM division CMP in 2005 for $33 million. The site is currently sponsored by IBM, which runs banners and its own content feeds into several panels on the site.

—Second-time-lucky for virtual events? The mega-tech-expo Comdex is rising from its ashes as a virtual event later this year. It will be joining a stable of 38 other virtual events owned by UBM, which are gradually gaining ground with their audiences. This is a change from 2007, when UBM first tried out virtual events using Second Life: “A lot of attendees came but we lost quite a lot of money,” says Levin.

He says the Comdex show will be “free” to enter but will feature a paid content element for the conference. “People get great value for this content and [we think will be] willing to pay for it.”