Wired (magazine) - The Anderson Era

The Anderson Era

Wired survived the dot-com bubble and found a new direction under editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, who took on the job in June 2001 and has made the magazine's coverage "more mainstream."

Under Anderson, Wired has produced some widely noted articles, including the April 2003 "Welcome to the Hydrogen Economy" story, the November 2003 "Open Source Everywhere" issue (which put Linus Torvalds on the cover and articulated the idea that the open source method was taking off outside of software, including encyclopedias as evidenced by Wikipedia), the February 2004 "Kiss Your Cubicle Goodbye" issue (which presented the outsourcing issue from both American and Indian perspectives), and an October 2004 article by Chris Anderson, which coined the popular term "Long Tail."

The November 2004 issue of Wired was published with The Wired CD. All of the songs on the CD were released under various Creative Commons licenses, an attempt to push alternative copyright into the spotlight. Most of the songs were contributed by major artists, including the Beastie Boys, My Morning Jacket, Paul Westerberg, and David Byrne.

In recent years Wired has won several industry awards. In 2005 the magazine received the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in the category of 500,000 to 1,000,000 subscribers. That same year Anderson won Advertising Age's editor of the year award. In May 2007, the magazine again won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. In 2008, Wired was nominated for three National Magazine Awards and won the ASME for Design. It also took home 14 Society of Publication Design Awards, including the Gold for Magazine of the Year. In 2009, Wired was nominated for four National Magazine Awards – including General Excellence, Design, Best Section (Start), and Integration – and won three: General Excellence, Design and Best Section (Start). David Rowan from Wired UK was awarded the BSME Launch of the Year 2009 award. On December 14, 2009, Wired magazine was named Magazine of the Decade by the editors of Adweek.

In 2006, writer Jeff Howe and editor Mark Robinson coined the term crowdsourcing in the June issue.

On February 19, 2009, Condé Nast Italia launched the Italian edition of Wired and Wired.it. On April 2, 2009, Condé Nast relaunched the UK edition of Wired, edited by David Rowan, and launched Wired.co.uk, which is now run by ex-CNET editor Nate Lanxon.

On August 15, 2009 Wired writer, Evan Ratliff "vanished" attempting to keep his whereabouts secret saying "I will try to stay hidden for 30 days." A $5,000 reward was offered to his finder(s). Ratliff was found September 8 in New Orleans by a team effort, which was written about by Ratliff in a later issue.

On May 27, 2010, Wired released its Tablet edition, first available on the iPad. Embraced by consumers and heralded as the beginning of a new era in publishing, the Wired iPad edition was downloaded an average of 17 times a minute for the first 24 hours, netting 24,000+ paid subscriptions. Over the ensuing days, Apple named the Wired Tablet Edition "The App of the Week," making it the first media brand to earn this acknowledgment; and the Wired App remained the No. 1 Paid Download on iTunes for 5 consecutive days. Close to three weeks following the release of this Tablet Edition, Wired had sold 90,000+ copies – exceeding the average monthly newsstand sales of its print edition.

In October and November 2010, Wired found itself embroiled in some controversy after many customers were unable to download the November issue of the Tablet edition after having been charged for it. Wired was in a tricky position, as the error message appeared to be related to the Adobe development suite they were using to put together the digital edition, and because individual issues are purchased through Apple's App Store, Wired was unable to issue refunds directly to affected customers. As of mid-November 2010, the issue had not been resolved, and Wired released the December issue prior to fixing the issue with the November edition. The impact on sales (if any) of later issues related to the negative feedback from disgruntled Wired customers is unknown at this time.