The Problem at Wired

A group of colleagues have an occasional email back-and-forth over something we find online discussing technology and the changes in publishing.

Today's back and forth concerned the article in today's New York Times regarding Chris Anderson's problems at Wired.

My comment to the group:

I'm in the ranks of those who hasn't bought a copy of Wired in I don't know how long, and rarely visit the site (also don't recall when -- certainly it's not in my bookmarks).

I remember how exciting it was in the founders' days, with (quoting from Wikipedia):

"Louis Rossetto and his partner Jane Metcalfe in 1993 with initial backing from software entrepreneur Charlie Jackson and eclectic academic Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab,
who was a regular columnist for six years, through 1998. The founding designers were John Plunkett and Barbara Kuhr (Plunkett+Kuhr), beginning with a 1991 prototype and continuing through the first five years of publication, 1993-98.

"Wired was a great success at its launch and was lauded for its vision, originality, innovation and cultural impact. In its first four years, the magazine won two National Magazine Awards for General
Excellence and one for Design.0D

"The founding executive editor of Wired, Kevin Kelly, was formerly one of the editors of the Whole Earth Catalog and the Whole Earth Review, and he brought with him many contributing writers from those publications. Six authors of the first issue, Wired 1.01 had written for Whole Earth Review, most notably Bruce Sterling and Stewart Brand. Other contributors to Whole Earth appeared in Wired, including William Gibson, who was featured on Wired's cover in its first year and whose article "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" resulted in the publication being banned from Singapore."

The design was radical, the ideas always provocative.

But that was a different time.

When I glance at it today it seems full of "digital lifestyle" articles, articles about technologies so esoteric that they're unlikely to affect me in my lifetime, and a lot of distasteful ads aimed at a demographic more wealthy and consumerist than my own.

Hiring someone whose background includes a stint at The Economist hardly seems the ideal candidate to restore that excitement to Wired. His Long Tail theory has been significantly discredited, and his new Free has already been eclipsed by Seth Godin (see "Free by itself is no longer enough to guarantee much of anything.")