The Premiere Issue of Wired Magazine 1.1 Changed Tech Reporting

In January of 1993, I was attending the MacWorld expo in San Francisco. At a furious pace I was hustling down a hallway to get in to a ballroom presentation when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a magazine that looked pretty dang cool. It was the WIRED Premiere publication (issue 1.1) and I stopped dead in my tracks and picked one up.

Quickly leafing through it I instantly knew I’d found exactly the right publication for everything I was doing and thinking as it pertained to the future of technology! Ripping out the subscription card I immediately filled it out to subscribe.

I wish I could convey to you what a big deal this magazine was when it appeared, and how profoundly it covered the big ideas and the overall zeitgeist of that era which birthed the commercial internet, companies like Google and Amazon, and tapped in to the explosion of tech and its changes on the world.

The constant (and sometimes jarring) design, colors and layout choices were often disconcerting, but always pushed-the-envelope in keeping with what they were covering: emerging, disruptive and futuristic tech.

Looking back on that first issue now is also a bit amusing — and I wish I could link to a live copy online but cannot find one — but there is one advertisement I found particularly delightful from Apple, proudly touting the ability to fax from the Powerbook 170 which I just so happened to own at that moment:

Click image for a larger view
The third ad from the front of the magazine was this one from Apple.
Note that the “killer app” for use of this Powerbook 170 is “Fax Transmittal”.

For at least 15 years, Wired magazine was my tech-bible. I devoured each issue and learned a lot along the way, and have used the Wired iPad app to download and read each issue. Unfortunately there is so much tech writing online now, the magazine has become less relevant (dare I say “boring”?) and I reluctantly just cancelled my subscription which will expire with the February 2020 issue.

SOME WIRED TIDBITS

Here are some items you may find of interest:

  • The Internet Archive has TechNation “internet radio show” (the term ‘podcast’ was not yet invented) and you can listen to Dr. Moria Gunn interview the founders of Wired magazine, Jane Metcalfe and Louis Rosetto, and it is very enlightening (This part of the show starts at 32:18). They discuss how “Wired” is different from its predecessors, addressing the complete societal impact of technology and its latest breakthroughs. Other topics include the phenomenal success of “Wired”’s premier issue and why the BBC is “wired” while National Public Radio is “tired.”
  • Lastly, here is the Wired Magazine Promo Reel from the lead-up to the premiere issue that I found at the Internet Archive (which, by the way, I have always found to be THE best resource for anything digitally significant from history):
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3 Comments

  1. Bob Gilbert on December 3, 2021 at 6:42 pm

    I have this issue. Been saving it for years. The irony that it is a hard copy never ceases to amaze me but that was then and this is now



  2. kHyal™ on February 15, 2023 at 10:10 am

    I have a couple of copies of that issue and was a contributor to its edgier precursor “Mondo 2000,” and the book “Mondo 2000: A User’s Guide to the New Edge,” as well as the book “Mutant Monkees Meet the Masters of Multimedia Machine.”



  3. Steve Borsch on February 24, 2023 at 11:36 am

    Don’t know why I missed your comment in my admin tasks (that…and I’m still recovering from a Covid infection). In any event I went ahead and added some links. If you have others you’d prefer your comment is linked to, please put those in a reply.

    As I was struggling to figure out everything online in the early 1990s—joining The WELL, maximizing use of Compuserve and database access, buying CD-ROMs covering everything cyber—Mondo 2000 was one I read from time-to-time when traveling from Minnesota to the Bay area (only place I could find it, since Minnesota was not yet on the bleeding edge of tech). What a fun time that era was!



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About Steve Borsch

Strategist. Learner. Idea Guy. Salesman. Connector of Dots. Friend. Husband & Dad. CEO. Janitor. More here.

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Podcasting hit the mainstream in July of 2005 when Apple added podcast show support within iTunes. I'd seen this coming so started podcasting in May of 2005 and kept going until August of 2007. Unfortunately was never 'discovered' by national broadcasters, but made a delightfully large number of connections with people all over the world because of these shows. Click here to view the archive of my podcast posts.