Wired.co.uk Goes Live Ahead Of April 2 Mag Relaunch
Conde Nast has gone live with a soft-launched Wired.co.uk site, ahead of next week’s UK magazine relaunch - 12 years after the title first left these shores. The publisher will ready a big online marketing campaign across sites including its own GQ and Vogue, NMA says.
Jewish Chronicle editor David Rowan is editing the UK magazine with Ben Hammersley an associate ed and, as we revealed in October, former ZDNet editor Michael Parsons heads up the online operation. An Italian edition debuted in February and the UK print mag hits on April 2. Parsons also plans Chinese and French online launches from London, we were told by CondeNet international president Stefano Maruzzi, who has since left the company.
Formed initially as a Guardian JV with the then-independent Wired Ventures in 1995, the story of the then nascent digital culture chronicle’s British edition - as best told by Danny O’Brien - reads like a who’s-who from UK online publishing’s earliest days, counting Tony Ageh (now BBC internet controller), Carolyn McCall (now GMG CEO) and Azeem Azhar (now a digital investor) amongst its founders.
In the UK then, Wired packed even more dayglo pages than its San Francisco Bay counterpart and, such were the times, had a strong emphasis on tech culture. Wired UK closed in February 1997, with 32 job losses and a 40,000 circulation, after being handed back to Wired Ventures outright before the magazine itself lulled - the mag sold to Conde and website to Lycos Inc. Lycos sold Wired News back to Conde in ‘07, however, so the brand is now reunited. This time, however, some wonder whether Wired, which has augmented its documentary of the digital revolution with business and science news and gadget reviews, can thrive in a market brimming with tech publications, online and off.
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@robertandrews
Mar 26, 2009 5:52 AM ET
Posted In: Media & Publishing, Magazines, Companies, Conde Nast, wired
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