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Hi Peter,

I remember looking at the same cover poster and noticing the extreme lack of woman covers. Depressing. Annoying.

Interesting thoughts on Wired pandering to advertisers. One could certainly get that impression. Often I think the case is that a magazine knows it's going to do a big article on a subject, and then lines up advertisers that would be interested in having their page next to the article. Maybe now, given the atrocious advertising market out there, editors are giving more thought to lead stories that could help their ad depts generate more business.

But all in all I agree, Wired is Tired.

I think Wired "jumped the shark" in the second year, with the "Zippies" issue.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.05/

So, if not WiReD, then what? Any suggestions for similar magazines that haven't Jumped the Shark yet?

I'm not sure I share your derision. Is Wired comprised mostly of advertising and gadget spreads which are thinly disguised advertisements? Certainly. I take it you don't read alot of People, or Newsweek, or have never thumbed through a woman's magazine like Cosmo, or a softcore men's magazine like Maxim.

Anyone who thinks that any magazine (Outside a few renegades like National Geographic and Consumer Reports) is anything but a vehicle for advertising is seriously deluded.

And I certainly disagree with anyone who would contend that Wired is content free (Though you didn't, it felt like you were intimating that). Within the last year they have had stories which I have found fascinating, such as the story on Genetically engineered tobacco, Nike's project to build better marathon runners through technology, and the audio experts attempting to unerase Nixon's lost tape segments.

Who else is doing stories of that type? Popular Science would turn them into thinly veiled tabloid parodies. Slashdot? Perhaps they would, but they'd get most of the facts wrong, and go into length about why Genetically Engineered tobacco was bad for Open Source. And then post it twice.

Is one valid story per issue enough of a reason to drop $6? I'm not sure. I've dropped $20 before on a CD that I liked just one song.

While you're certainly entitled to your opinion, I would posit that simply because Wired isn't a world leader in tech/lifestyle reporting while shunning advertising out of an outdated and tired concept of journalistic integrity (Which hasn't existed for years anywhere else) doesn't make them a worthless rag.

And as for the covers, unfortunate perhaps, but they know their demographic. If most of the stories they write are for their mostly male demographic about items in fields dominated by males (and mostly male geeks), then I think it's explainable. I'd much rather they keep on doing what they're doing than contriving a story to create a cover with a woman.

Is Wired a "must read" for people in the tech field? No, not anymore. However I'd have to say in the past year the content has gotten better. In particular, as somebody noted before, it's a great value. I recently subscribed simply because the cost was so low, 10 or 12 dollars for a year I believe.

Ironically, my interest in Wired went down over the years as I spent more time online. I too remember when the first issue came out, it was exciting to read about the technological developments taking place, the effect of technology on other cultures, so forth. Nowadays, however, it seems that itch is scratched by articles and discussions I find online. The thrill of the new is found on the web rather than on a page. They've responded well by doing in depth articles on topics which probably wouldn't hold my interest online.

Of course, having said that, the Wifi supplement was indeed lame, it offered little new information. It seemed geared towards people who haven't taken the plunge into wireless yet, which as noted above, is not their target audience. But if the ad revenues fund another dozen articles on specialized subjects, then no harm done.

Wired used to be on the "cutting-edge" but I think the majority of the population are not longer awed by what was once, and may now be considered, cutting-edge when published in a magazine. Information travels faster and therefore is able to be consumed that much quicker. Or maybe advertisements are just becoming more ubiquitous than computers.

I was a subscriber and religious reader after the second issue, but the chain of intelligent euphoria was broken during 97. There's been a recent (relatively minor) uptick in quality, but it's just not by or for the same people anymore. Many of those original people are somewhat disillusioned, and most of them would probably cringe at the things they wrote at the time. Nonetheless, inhaling the content and design immediately upon delivery for the first few years (including the always entertaining colophon) was a pleasant experience, and I'd like to thank all of the people involved. The NTK folks still show an occasional glimmer of boundless joy at the effervescent possibilities of zukünftige Technologien, if you need a new source.

You can read Wired for free and avoid the advertising. The issue goes online as soon as the print mags hit the stand. They started doing this a year ago.

I didn't mind them putting Bruce Sterling on the cover. Goood for Bruce, I thought. I stopped reading when they stared putting CEOs on the cover.

Just wanna say hi to you after reading your blog.

Wired Mag is no longer anything near what it used to be, in fact, it is so far off it might as well close down. Who needs it.
I have also heard that Louis Rossetto has turned into a neo-con Republican screaming for an Iraqi war and crazily calling all Arabs Islamic fascists. He has a sick mind these days- poor boy-I have not heard a word about him for 6 years.

Please post more comments, I will visit this site again soon.

Hi
It was really interesting to read your comments about Wired magazine circa 2003. This is because I found exactly the same issues regarding promotion and gender occurring when I studied the magazine (circa 1993-1996)for my PhD dissertation. How long have you all been Wired readers?

I've not been a reader of Wired for very long, maybe just over a year, but I certainly enough mainy of the articles in Wired. I mean sure there is quite a bit of advertising, but if you're not a robot then no harm done.. Without the ad dollars there wouldn't be the good articles that are in there. There probably wouldn't even be the mag come to think of it..If you don't like the mag, then why waste your time complaining about it?

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Who is Wired's target audience? What's the age group is it more of a guy's mag?

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