© 1997 j-dom Media. Contact us!Its over. Wired UK will publish its last issue this March. The UK and Europe has become unwired in the process.
This is a symptom of the technological dark ages Europe is falling into as highlighted by leaders at the Davos conference of the World Economic Foundation. They said Europe had become unwired.
Originally, I will admit, Wired UK had been too American for its European market but in the past few months it had begun to represent more accurately the cyberpunk scene of the UK with techno music, hackers and digital artists.
Many complained about its design, I simply don't have time for them. Why deny people their right to present something creatively and excitingly instead of in the dull formats of .net and other competitors? Others, as expounded in the uk.media newsgroup, felt the articles were pretentious drivel. They just missed the point which is half the problem. Similarly Douglas Rushkoff in The Guardian dismissed the magazine as having a secret agenda. It must be noted that Wired UK 1.0 was launched in partnership with The Guardian Media Group but this partnership collapsed due to a complete culture clash.
Hari Kunzru, former associate editor of Wired UK, explained in The Telegraph Connected section how Wired Ventures only gave them the creative room to be British in the last few issues and this had been reflected in a huge upsurge in circulation.
So what went wrong? Why did it have to end? See Part 2.
