Imagine Vice blended with Wirecutter. That is the new Wired. That seems to be the takeaway after the latest SWMS-Semrush Index revealed the Top 25 most popular Wired articles during July, August and September.
Former InformationWeek reporter David Carr has joined Similarweb as senior insights manager. He’ll be mining data and sharing analyses on Similarweb’s blog. SWMS will be
SWMS contributor Rhiannon Pacheco writes: Landing a product review in Wired is a big win. We sat down with senior editor Michael Calore to learn more about who and how to pitch, whether Wired takes exclusives, and how product coverage can be a cultural reflection of sorts.
Perhaps you read last month about Day 1 of the Wired25 event in San Francisco. Many a newsmaker spoke, and it was an A-list event from a speaker and attendee POV. Less was written about Day 2 — “Culture & Fam” Day, Wired called it. The formula may become a brand-builder in the 2020s as the second digital generation comes of age.
Wired EIC Nicholas Thompson steers one of the most venerable brands in publishing. That being the case, Wired tends to be tough to pitch successfully. That’s why PR pros will want to read what Nick had to say to us last week in New York City.
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Steve is a longtime friend of SWMS and worked at subscriber LaunchSquad before moving on to IBM, Salesforce and now Anthropic. Steve knows exactly how to harness Claude’s power for comms purposes. Follow him and learn.
Press Gazette has a great story about Google reintroducing AI summaries into search results — less so in queries about breaking news, but definitely when someone searches for trend or how-to info. Convenient for users, maybe… but publishers stand to lose a ton of long-tail traffic because of this. No wonder the vast majority of publisher “innovation” is about commerce or consulting and no longer builds upon journalism.
CNBC Make It had a popular video franchise called My Biggest Lessons, in which CEOs shared something valuable that they learned along the way. No new segments have appeared since May 31. We’ll monitor this for you.
Great reporting from Mark Stenberg at Adweek. Two departures on the sales side seem to have hurt. The story also suggests that former Fortune CEO Alan Murray — who said he was retiring — may turn up at WSJ. Fortune is said to have released Murray from his noncompete, taking his word that he was ending his career.
Adweek subscription required.
Ten months ago SWMS spotlighted five up-and-coming Fortune reporters, suggesting that PR get to know these rookies. Where are they now? Jane Thier continues to excel in the Success section. Ruth Umoh now edits Next To Lead. Kylie Robison split for The Verge. Rachyl Jones is a fellow at Semafor. Alexandra Sternlicht this summer won a Knight-Bagehot fellowship at Columbia. Competition for this is brutal — congrats Alexandra!
