Wired Expands Product Reviews

The cover of this month’s Wired features a graphic boasting “141 new products, tested and rated.” In recent issues, we’ve noticed that the magazine has increased both the depth and visibility of its product review coverage, so we decided to find out what was going on. We caught up with Mark McClusky, the magazine’s products editor, while he was driving to work earlier today and asked him about the increased coverage.

“We rearranged the front of the book a little bit and made ‘Test’ it’s own section. Previously it had lived under the rubric of the ‘Play’ section. The thinking is that products are really important to what Wired is about. When we started reviewing products back in 1993, beyond the computer magazines, there really weren’t a lot of magazines printing reviews of consumer electronics. … We wanted to bulk it up and give it the feel that this is a core part of what we do. When you think of Wired, this is one of the many things that we do.”

An how has the response been? “The response has been great,” McClusky said. “I think you’re always going to have a section of your readership that cares a little bit less about product reviews, but the people who are into product reviews are really into product reviews.”

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