layoffs
A quarter of the 50-something employees in Wired.com's
San Francisco newsroom are gone, a source tells us — and with them, the
bubbly delusion that Wired would not just report on the transformation of media by technology, but be a part of the revolution as well. The cuts hit Wired's tech team heavily, though some writers and editors also got pink slips. (CNET
reports that 3 out of 28 editorial staffers are gone, but a
Wired insider says that the actual number of edit jobs cut is at least six.)
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layoffs
Just yesterday, we were hearing gossip about how Condé Nast, the magazine publisher, had spared
Wired while slashing
Portfolio, its troubled business magazine. Not so: Wired.com is having layoffs due to "unexpected cutbacks," Silicon Alley Insider
reports. No details on numbers yet; the publication is having a conference call to discuss the cuts now. Wired.com, which is managed separately from the magazine, had gone on an acquisition spree of late, having bought Reddit, Ars Technica, and Webmonkey recently. It also had plans to resuscitate HotWired, a '90s-era Web property which popularized the banner ad; those may now be on hold.
Update: More details have arrived on the cuts. A quarter of the 50 or so staff in Wired.com's San Francisco newsroom
are gone.
rumormonger
Chris Anderson, Wired's waggle-eared rock-star editor, has been dropping hints left and right about the relaunch of HotWired, a faded Web property Conde Nast
picked up along with Webmonkey last month. The rumor we've heard: That Wired is relaunching the site as a news-focused social network like Digg. (Conde Nast already owns Digg competitor Reddit, whose engineers are likely involved in the project.) It's a sensible brand extension for Wired, but a far cry from HotWired's early ambitions,
described in a 1994 email as "live, twitching, the real-time nervous system of the planet." Here's the HotWired FAQ, which reads like it was just unearthed from a time capsule:
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history
Kevin Kelly,
Wired's past in-house futurist, has given an interview in which he makes the seemingly ludicrous claim that
Wired could have been Google. The
New York Observer has a
giggle at Kelly's statement that "from the very beginning, Wired believed in 'search.'... I believe that had Wired not been divided and sold that we might have actually arrived at the same place that Google had." But was Kelly really that far off? Watch the whole video and see
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party report
MIDTOWN WEST — "You're a normal person,"
Wired editor Chris Anderson asked me at
Wired's 15th anniversary party last night in New York. "What do you make of all this?" He nodded his head toward the four corners of the roof top, crowded with the
Wired set. In response, I said something about the thick-rimmed black frames and all the scarves. But for reading-comprehension points, I should have said I felt like I was in the midst of a cult. Because that's what Conde Nast's
Wired is all about, Anderson and Wired cofounder Louis Rossetto told us in their speeches: turning the cult of technology into a culture, but keeping it as fervent as a cult. That and covers of a nude Jenna Fischer and LonelyGirl15 in bed, of course. Below, photos of the faithful.
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acquisitions
TechCrunch reports that CondeNet, the online arm of Condé Nast and the parent of Wired.com,
has bought Ars Technica, a rival technology news site. But if the latest issue of
Wired is any indication, that's not the only tech property that's moved to CondeNet recently. On page 24,
Wired's June issue announces a new version of Webmonkey, a defunct site for Web developers, under a list of Wired.com features:
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reddit
Social news aggregator — that is to say, Digg clone — Reddit is working on a redesign. Online media consultant Brent Csutoras
landed leaked screenshots. We've annotated them for your convenience.
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