Wired magazine has replaced its longtime website editor-in-chief, Evan Hansen, with a Wired magazine veteran, Mark McClusky, reports Dylan Tweney of VentureBeat.com.
Tweney writes, “Both Hansen and McClusky are my friends, so I’m going out on a limb a bit in reporting on the story. I worked at Wired.com from 2007 to 2011, where Hansen was my boss, and I worked alongside McClusky years ago at a startup magazine called Mobile (formerly Mobile PC).
“The move signals that this is the latest step in Wired owner Condé Nast’s consolidation of the brand. Wired long suffered from its split into two entities, print and digital. When Conde Nast acquired the magazine from its founders, Louis and Jane Rossetto, in the late 1990s, it left the website on the table. Wired.com eventually went to Lycos and then, after a change of ownership or two, wound up being sold to Condé Nast in 2006 for a rumored $10 million to $20 million. However, Wired.com remained in a separate division of Conde Nast for years. The parent company remained focused on print magazines until quite recently, and it seemed content to let its websites languish with minimal budgets and minimal oversight.
“In recent years, Condé Nast has gradually brought the two sides of the business together, at Wired and at other magazines it publishes.
“Wired.com brought in almost as much revenue as Wired magazine in Q4 2012, so Condé Nast execs probably figured it was too important to leave under separate leadership any longer.”
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