Do go on to read the comments, as they are what make this dialogue interesting...
via boingboing gadgets, (thanks paddy):
Here's the problem with Wired: They think print matters.
Background: Stephanie Clifford warns that Wired may be about to die. Ad sales are down 50%, putting it just above Power and Motoryacht at the bottom of Condé Nast's portfolio of magazines.
I've got some relatively ancient history to share, but I think it's germane.
After I left Gawker Media, I was contracted by Condé to help the
newly reacquired Wired.com develop a blogging strategy. I spent a few
weeks with the Wired.com chiefs developing a battle plan and presented
it to the magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson. He gave it the
nod—he got what I was trying to do instantly—and away we went.
Three months later the traffic to the Wired.com blogs had doubled. I
cleared out writers that weren't working. That didn't always mean they
were bad writers, but usually just bad bloggers—there is a difference.
Even the best magazine writer may not be able to write and report in
front of an audience.
Our most successful blog was Table of Malcontents, run by
our friend John Brownlee (with Lisa, too!), who ran with the
opportunity, creating a "net culture" blog that was the archetypal
model for what we were trying to create: Smart, fast, full of
personality, two steps ahead of mainstream tastes. It had a superstar
team, and with hard work they were soon the most popular blog on the
network behind Rob's Gadget Lab. (They also did much to make my not-so-secret motto come true: "Make Wired weird again.")
Then the magazine folks stepped in. As soon as it became clear that
Wired.com's blogs might actually get some traction, the magazine
started to dabble. I had structured the blogs so that each had a lead
editor, something that that worked very well at Gawker. No one had a
problem with that—until it meant that my lead bloggers might be telling
magazine staffers what to do.
It's not unusual for print journalists to look down at online
writers, and often rightly so. There are some amazing reporters and
writers whose work appears in Wired, people who do the sort of storytelling that bloggers rarely have the time or skill to do.
But reporters treating their online peers like that at Wired?
It was accepted without much question that the magazine side of the
business—literally across the "Berlin Hall"—always trumped the online
side.
I made it about six months before I felt too constrained by both the
magazine and its publishers and moved on. Since then, Wired.com's grown
to 11 million monthly visitors: its blogs are among the best in their
fields and its tech news reportage is among the finest, online or
off—successes I don't take credit for. The sheer size of that
readership speaks volumes: the Times says the magazine has
only 700k or so subscribers. (It's a damn shame that online advertising
is devalued compared to print advertising, but that's the media world
for you.)
Wired makes a fantastic magazine. The "puzzle" edition last
month was just brilliant, and I skimmed it from cover to cover. But for
technology and pop science reporting, the market has moved on. Tech
magazines, now matter how well executed, are nothing more than a cute
anachronism, with the same sort of boutique market as hand-made
stationery.
Which isn't to say that we or anyone else who writes for money isn't
doomed; we just don't have to buy paper by the ton roll, nor keep a
support staff around nearly as large as our editorial staff.
Wired is great print, but if the magazine can't make money
and is shuttered, taking the website down with it, I'm going to be
livid. Not that making money online is easy—it's not, especially
without sacrificing your ethics and your voice—but if any mainstream
outlet should be able to make the transition, it should be Wired.
I fear that may be impossible, not just for Wired but for
all these old brands, because they can't accept that the work at which
they have excelled for years will be just as important when it's
online—and online only.
P.S. No one actually ever called it the "Berlin Hall" except me.
P.P.S. The fact that it was the Times that published this piece, one of my other dear media orgs also choking and sputtering on the future, was not lost on me.