From: Elizabeth Childs (echilds@linex.com)
Date: Sat Dec 18 1999 - 00:23:35 MST
> And this is supposed to be a progressive techno-savvy magazine?
> </RANT>
>
> I've found the online articles thoroughly disappointing. Can someone
> comment on the hardcopy Wired? I'm hoping the overly-critical and
> pessimistic online content is meant to provoke you into buying the
> magazine.
Wired.com, where the article quoting Robert Bradbury appeared, is wholly
owned by Lycos and has only an informal and historical relationship with the
hard copy magazine. Their editorial staffs are entirely separate, and I
hardly ever see the same writer in both places anymore.
Hotwired/Wired Digital, which includes Hotbot, Suck.com, Hotwired, Wired
News (wired.com), and Webmonkey, was once a spin-off of Wired magazine. But
the hard copy magazine was sold to Conde Naste - much improving it - and the
online properties were sold to Lycos. The online archives of the hard copy
magazine continue to be hosted at the Wired Digital site, but that's their
only relationship.
They could use some help with branding.
I, personally, happen to like both. I agree that the article in question
wasn't very helpful, but Wired News is written on extremely tight deadlines.
Going into depth about the big issues isn't their forte, nor do they seem
quite as savvy about biology - they do better at taking their extensive
knowledge of the net biz and applying it to the latest phenomena. I think
they're much better than news.com at instant coverage of the internet
industry, the only arena where I'm really qualified to judge.
Wired magazine intermittently awes me and bores me. They are easily the
most Extropian magazine I've ever discovered, and they cover things from all
kinds of fresh angles, stories I haven't seen elsewhere. For a while they
were succumbing to the temptations of "CEO porn" (yet more articles about
forgettable .com CEO's), but it sounds like the latest issue is taking them
back to their roots in technophilia.
The one-to-one marketing article they ran back in early 1998 changed my
life. I campaigned for a data department at my company because my thinking
was so influenced. One of those a year is worth the price of the magazine.
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