This takes me back. Conde Nast is to resurrect the UK version of its Wired science and digital culture magazine – 11 years after it shut the operation. Jewish Chronicle editor David Rowan will edit a relaunched edition, debuting early next year, following an Italian edition under Riccardo Luna, with GQ associate publisher Jamie Jouning picked as publisher and GQ publisher director brought over for the same role, Guardian reports.
Formed initially as a Guardian JV in 1995, two years after the famous US mag, 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 Reuters innovation head) amongst its founders and helping bring neon attention to the growing UK tech culture crowd.
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 – sold in print to Conde and online to Lycos, which acted as a kind of cruel parent and starved the sites of sufficient attention. Lycos sold Wired News back to Conde last year, however, and last month also gave up original site components HotWired and Webmonkey, so the brand is now unified and resurgent. Here’s an archive of Wired UK mags.