Wired

Valleywag reports that San Francisco-based Wired just fired two top editors from Wired.com; the founders of social news site Reddit.com, which was acquired by Wired Digital nearly three years ago, might soon be following them out the door.

This news comes on the heels of several rounds of layoffs -- a quarter of the staff was let go in November, and several others, including managing editor Leander Kahney, were lost in April. All this while parent company Conde Nast is closing magazines left and right.

Despite strong traffic, says Valleywag, Wired Digital has been included in Conde Nast's cuts. When considering the disconnect between Wired's print and digital editions (the magazine and Web site feature only a low level of integration), this seems especially curious.

Ben Mezrich's kind-of-true but also sort-of-madeup exposé of the creation of Facebook, The Accidental Billionaires, debuts at number 2 on the New York Times Hardcover Business Bestsellers list, second only to Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.

Chris Anderson's Free debuts at number 7 (though the asterisk says its sales are almost indistinguishable from the number 6 book, Shop Class as Soulcraft, in which the owner of a one-man motorcycle shop argues for the makes the case for manual work).

In 2004, San Francisco-based Wired magazine decided to throw an annual tech expo, called NextFest, to promote itself and its subject matter.

Now, the economy is hurting not just the magazine industry, but tourism in a variety of cities: NextFest has been canceled.

NextFest has been held in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, with backing from corporate giants such as GE, HP and Toyota. When Wired parent company Conde Nast canceled its own newspaper subscriptions this week, it seemed like a good sign that more cutbacks were to follow.

According to Mediaweek, through its August issue, Wired’s ad pages were off this year 44 percent to 369.

Valleywag has taken Wired editor Chris Anderson to task for his recent interview with Der Spiegel (also distributed via Salon).

Take a look at the first three questions and answers, and gauge for yourself:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Anderson, let's talk about the future of journalism.

Anderson: This is going to be a very annoying interview. I don't use the word journalism.

SPIEGEL: Okay, how about newspapers? They are in deep trouble both in the United States and worldwide.

Anderson: Sorry, I don't use the word media. I don't use the word news. I don't think that those words mean anything anymore. They defined publishing in the 20th century. Today, they are a barrier. They are standing in our way, like a horseless carriage.

SPIEGEL: Which other words would you use?

Anderson: There are no other words. We're in one of those strange eras where the words of the last century don't have meaning. What does news mean to you, when the vast majority of news is created by amateurs? Is news coming from a newspaper, or a news group or a friend? I just cannot come up with a definition for those words. Here at Wired, we stopped using them.

Which isn't to say that Anderson is entirely standoffish, as he answers many of the questions with thoughtfulness and aplomb. Among his answers, he says that he wouldn't miss the Chronicle if it goes away, that he gets his news from Twitter (among other sources, one of which is "conversations").

He also makes an interesting point about utilizing social filters for his news ("I read lots of articles from mainstream media but I don't go to mainstream media directly to read it. It comes to me, which is really quite common these days. More and more people are choosing social filters for their news rather than professional filters.")

Other tidbits:

Chris Anderson is clearly a talented fellow. As editor of Wired, he's helped build the magazine into one of the most critically acclaimed publications in the country.

He also writes books, his latest being "Free: The Future of a Radical Price."

Apparently, he doesn't need much time for sleep. Anderson recently became chairman of Bay Area startup BookTour (which he founded in 2007 and for which he previously served as CEO), which in April received a minority investment from Amazon. BookTour -- which bills itself as "the world's largest database of author and literary events" -- will now provide event data to Amazon's new dedicated author bio and information pages. (An example can be found with Anderson's own author page.)

The company will continue to syndicate its content to other sources, as well. Other site features include TourBuilder, which helps authors plan book tour itineraries by suggesting appropriate venues based on their location and genre of book.

The real question is, how can a guy -- even a guy as accomplished as Anderson -- edit a tech magazine and run a tech startup at the same time? Aren't those both full-time jobs? And this isn't to suggest that Wired's coverage will be affected in any way, but there are at least hints of a conflict-of-interest issue here.

No matter how un-biased the coverage, will in-the-know readers be able to see Amazon mentioned in the pages of Wired without thinking about the cash infusion the company gave to the editor's side business?

So many irons in so many fires can do that to a guy, even one who's proven to be as adept a juggler as Anderson.

An expansive story in Sunday's New York Times reports that despite critical success under Editor in Chief Chris Anderson, Wired's San Francisco-based print publication is struggling mightily.

Its 50-percent drop in ad pages this year ranks nearly dead last among the more than 150 magazines surveyed by Media Industry Newsletter, beating out only Portfolio (which was shuttered last month by Wired owner Conde Nast), and Power and Motoryacht (which is about . . . yachts).

Reports the Times:

Wired's circulation has gone steadily up, rising 32 percent since Mr. Anderson's first full year there. But it is still one of the least popular magazines at Conde Nast, with a circulation of only 704,000. Its Web site, meanwhile, is the most popular of Conde Nast's magazine sites, with about 11 million unique visitors a month, according to the company's internal figures. That suggests that technology-forward readers prefer to read articles in a technology-forward way.

Decent news for the company; bad news for those making the argument for the print edition.

Wired Publisher Howard Mittman said that since the March issue -- which featured only 38 pages of advertising -- he'd added non-tech advertisers for liquor and home furnishings. Responding to a question about how he'd make up the balance, he said, "I dunno. I mean, pray?"