"Wired" was such a beacon

A talk with Jane Metcalfe, who started together with Louis Rossetto the "Voice of the Digital Revolution"

Louis Rossetto and his long-time companion Jane Metcalfe were the star guests of the BerlinBeta conference last weekend. Louis told a touching and very personal story about life at Wired, the ups and downs of one of most visible magazines about everything being digital. But the whole story was "off the record" and will be buried in the auditorium forever. Fortunately, Jane was more happy to talk to the press - at least about her actual projects. But at last, she was also willing to talk about the magazine and the hype of the last ten years, about optimism and criticism, and about what happened to the so-called digital revolution.

It's 10 years ago now that you had the idea to found "Wired". If you compare the situation and the spirit now and then, what has changed?

Metcalfe: We were based in Amsterdam at that time. We we're looking at leading-edge technologies that people used to communicate. And we saw how a bunch of very separate communities started to use common tools like the Internet and how these tools would start to create a common dialogue for people that otherwise wouldn't be talking to each other. And in fact our previous magazine, "Language Technology", was very interested in this phenomenon. Before that, all the cultural groups working in the design or in the music environment were strictly separated. You couldn't even go to their events and conferences without feeling as an intruder.

So, when we first arrived in the United States in 1991 - and we had to go there because of the market - we were so excited to see that blurring of boundaries happening. Not only among rockers and, you know, the Grateful Dead Heads or among the engineers and marketing people in Silicon Valley, but also to see borders in general coming down. The last ten years have been just incredible turbulent and the media revolution has been dramatic. And we at "Wired" went through a phase of great excitement, hope, inspiration, experimentation, tremendous financial losses, and all of a sudden the doors just everywhere went schhhuuppp and everyone then said, "this is the way to go", "this is the right business model", "here is, what our expectations are and what is going to work." And I think that was an incredibly depressing time and in fact it was right at that point when we resigned from the company.

And the last two years, I would say, were very much unclear, what the new exciting feature was. Most of the people who worked at "Wired" - and there were about 1000 employees that went through our doors in the final years when we were operating - are talking about going to the non-profit world. There are also people who shut down their e-mail accounts and don't wanna use computers anymore. It's still a real backlash against everything that was going on. But I feel, that there's still tons of subcults going on everywhere that is exciting and interesting, new working routines... I think, there isn't one great big giant story about the New Economy and the Digital Revolution to follow. And it was easy, when there was one big story and you could look upon it from a lot of different angles. Now, we have a lot of little stories. And in fact, it could be a very interesting time because you can choose what you're interested in.

When you started the magazine, you were excited about the biggest story of the Nineties, which was convergence according to one of the first editorials. So, you don't see any big future trends coming up for the next decade?

Metcalfe: I think, people are still struggling with convergence. I don't think that anyone has figured out anything successful in this field. People start chewing it up and digesting it. Convergence was technology as well as business, and that's still happening. If there is something like the big story, it's still the Internet, people networking together. That story is still working itself out. But what's coming next is a new environment for commerce, communication, and community. That's happening now, that's happening everywhere. It's the same question as with what's happened after the Russian Revolution. It's a disaster first. What's happening after a revolution is, you first build a new civilization. And that's what's going on now.

Sounds like less fun and more work to me.

Metcalfe: It is the more tedious business, it's not historian anymore. There are changes in education, changes in the nature of communities, subcults. People are connecting that would never have met individually. Stories get out like the electronic Intifada, and we can find information about the Middle East that you don't get from the ordinary media. All of this stuff is still happening and it's having a big impact on society. It's the same story, but it comes with different granularity now. Of course it sounds more exciting if you can make big pronouncements about visions of the future. 'Imagine this and this,' you know. And I think a lot of imagining was going on over the last ten years. And now it's more like plaudering the wall while catching up with all this visions.

'Wired' was one of these pioneers. When the first issue came out it was just like 'whow' this is something new and interesting. Eight years later, the magazine is still alive while other New Economy magazines have died.

Metcalfe: It's funny, because 'Wired' was such a powerful beacon in a way. It was such a lighthouse, a magnet for attention, energy, and excitement and so forth. It was a transformational thing for everybody. I mean, obviously working on it was transformational, but also people who read it found it very amazing. We got often e-mails like 'This is my first e-mail' from 16-year old kids from Kansas who never thought that there was anyone like them out there. So it's hard to get away from. Things have splintered of now. I think there's some serious business there, it's a very successful magazine, and the websites and the search engine are still working very well. In case, if anything carries the spirit of 'Wired' it's 'Wired News'.

You now have moved back to Amsterdam, right?

Metcalfe: We still spend half of the year in California. And the rest of the year in Holland.

Is it a sort of coming home? Are you sick of the Valley?

Metcalfe: Silicon Valley is still a critical place. I guess it's more a personal issue. We wanted to get out and see other things. You get a little bit convinced [shouts] about the importance of your world, you know. So it's nice to come back. I remember when we left to go to Silicon Valley, to the Bay area in the first place, this database of our old magazine I used had 1500 companies in it. And I did a search on the ones that could be found in the Bay area and I had like 250 out of 1500. So we have to balance this out and look at the rest of the world again. Coming back to Europe now is important for our children to be international, to grow up in a global culture. It's not enough to be American, it's not enough to be European, and it's not enough to feel comfortable with a mono-cultural environment. You have to be a citizen of the planet. And we're not bound to a 24/7 Disney world only.

Why didn't you publish the magazine in Europe from the beginning?

Metcalfe: We couldn't have started the magazine here. I don't think we would have found risk capital. People wouldn't have worked blood, sweat, and tears for years without any obvious reward in site. And the infrastructure costs were hideous. Telcos had not been deregulated. There was no competitive telco market. All the prizes were ridiculous expensive compared to the US. You paid twice as much for an international call, which would have made our worldwide research for the magazine unthinkable. And you wait six months for a software release. Also, you talk to dozen different marketing directors - in a dozen different languages for a European-wide issue.

Is there anything that you would do different if you would start the magazine today? There was a lot of talk about the 'Californian ideology', about "Wired" writing uncritical about new technologies.

Metcalfe: In terms of optimism I think, there is no other way looking at the future. We grow up during the Cold War. It was all about Nuclear winter, 'when would you die', when will somebody push the button. I remember people saying at the College, 'We're never gonna have children'. And that's not today. It's simply important to be critically optimistic. It's important to think that the world could be better. Otherwise it's very easy to slip into self-indulgence, cynicism, and anti-social behavior. Anything we're starting again would be infused with this kind of idea, that it's possible to make the world better and that individuals can make a difference. From a business-cultural perspective, too, it makes a real good environment to work in. If it's infused in everything you're doing. Not only the productivity is up, but the way you build you're culture is much better too. It's a much happier place to be.

It was remarkable for us to move from Northern Europe to the East Coast and from there to the West Coast. At each step along the way, things changed. It was dark northern Europe with dark clouds and its long winter. And then we get to the East Coast with New York and Boston. Things were not good in 91. The economy was in the toilet; the Gulf War was going on. Things were very difficult, people were struggling just to keep their jobs, and the infrastructure was crumbling. It was a crazy time. And as we moved over the country to California, first of all, everything changed from black to white. The weather was good, the sun was shining and we met people who said, 'Hey, that's a great idea.' All of a sudden there were all these people who believed that we could make 'Wired' work. And every step along the way people had told us why it wouldn't work. It was amazing to us. And this kind of thinking was so critical for us moving forward in a happy and positive way.

In the middle of the Nineties there were also plans to publish a German edition of "Wired" together with "Der Spiegel". Why didn't it work out?

Metcalfe: Germany was part of a bigger plan, and that was to create a global pool of editorial contributions. This would have really gone a long way towards making 'Wired' less American and perhaps even less idealistic. Who knows? This multiplicity of thinking - assumed it would have been infused with a certain dose of 'Wired' perspective - would have been incredibly enriching. But our partners here in Germany had their own plans with "Wired". And so we pulled out of everything. Even though we had already rented office space in Berlin-Mitte - at a time when nobody thought of Berlin as becoming a hub for the media.

Do you have any personal projects coming up?

Metcalfe: Thank you for this question, I'm so tired of 'Wired' [laughs]. We were in the lovely position of having two children right after we left the company. So this has been a wonderful position to us to detoxify. Because we worked like slaves for a long time. So I found three different things that I'm working on now. Two of them are non-profit; one of them is for-profit. It's an organization called Ground Zero and it's based in Silicon Valley. Its aim is to provide resources to foster the creation of the magic that emerges from art and technology interaction. One of the things that we found is that a lot of collaboration between art and technology in the past has either been founded by governments or by big corporations. And for a variety of reasons, these funding opportunities are not necessarily available right now. People don't want to move money into that when they are laying people off. So, this organization has really been founded to help find people, creative talents, all over the place that are working in this field and provide them with networking capabilities. In other words, meeting people, technologists, collaborators, helping find founders who would support their kind of work, providing exhibition opportunities for them. Hopefully, this will invigorate the culture of Silicon Valley. Right now it's all about market speak there, all about technology and engineering and this draws a lot of criticism. People are obsessive on their work and not getting out on cultural events. So this is an attempt to start on a local level something that could have global repercussions. And its interesting to see artists moving into this new digital sphere. Our first commission is for Bill Viola who is an amazingly talented, innovative artists. He's now going to be creating a multi-bubbled world of spiritual journey. It's a game.

The other organization is an attempt to bridge the so-called digital divide. It's called One-Economy.com and it is set up to provide a sort of umbrella. The problem is, that these people who are considered low income are not considered viable by any of the organizations and companies that could be reaching out for them. And so this turns the assumptions upside down and says, 'the 35 million Americans that are living in subsidized housing are a viable market.' And if we package them and deliver them to certain companies, they can expand their marketing reach into a community that does have economic potential to them while at the same time doing community service. It's a free markets, free minds kind of approach to a traditional philanthropic situation. We we're so excited about all the wealth being created in Silicon Valley and many people thought that it would spill over in philanthropy. But this is so subject to the winds of the stock market. So, finding new forms of philanthropy that people interested in these kind of problems can relate to has created an organization where some of these pioneers of the New Economy are actually connecting up now with new philanthropy.

The third organization is founded by a Dutch guy and it's called Ex'pressions. It's a kind of 'New Media School', a new form of College/University level education that chops the traditional liberal arts education pretty much out of the window. It says, that what the really marketable skills are in the 21st century are content creation, production, and management of digital audio, digital video, and web media. This school will be able to produce a graduate with a College equal degree within 14 months; it's a Bachelor of Applied Sciences degree.