Science and Science Online; <i>Wired</i> and <i>HotWired</i>

Interviews conducted by Alexander Fowler

Science magazine is one of the largest peer-reviewed scientific journals today. It is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which has a membership of almost 150,000 scientists worldwide and represents some 283 professional scientific, technical, and medical societies, making it the largest scientific federation in the world. The first issue of Science was published on July 3, 1880, as a result of a collaboration between journalist John Michels and inventor Thomas A. Edison. Since that time, the weekly, peer-reviewed journal has published articles on novel concepts of interdisciplinary interest in every field of Science.

In November 1995, Science started offering access via the Internet to an electronic version called Science On-line. At first, it only featured the table of contents for each weekly issue and access to an electronic-only section called "Beyond the Printed Page," which featured discussions centered on a particular subject covered in the magazine that week. Later the magazine went up on the Internet in its full-text entirety, including links to citations and other on-line resources. Although Science On-line started out as free to anyone with access to the World Wide Web, it now requires subscribers to pay a $12 fee. In conjunction with Science On-line, the Association has created three other on-line ventures: Science's Electronic Marketplace, the Science Professional Network, and Science's Next Wave.

Since Science's founding there have been a dozen editors, the most recent of whom is Floyd Bloom. An innovative neuroscientist with a broad-based concept of structure and function of the nervous system, Dr. Bloom became one of the major architects of modern neuroscience. He was one of the first neurobiologists to utilize modern molecular biological techniques in a search for molecules of importance in brain function and the characterization of brain-specific genes. Recognizing the value of computers in neuroscience, he also pioneered their application to neuro-anatomic investigations and the development of a neuro-anatomic database. Dr. Bloom is presently Chairman of the Department of Neuropharmacology at The Scripps Research Institute. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, he has received numerous awards, including the Pasarow Award in Neuropsychiatry and the Hermann von Helmholtz Award, as well as a number of honorary degrees from major universities. On May 1, 1995, he became Editor-in-Chief of Science , and according to the Association's bylaws, "is responsible for the content and professional quality of Science, and will determine the merit, suitability, and presentation of material for the journal, taking into account recommendations of reviewers and referees."

Conversation with Floyd Bloom, Editor-In-Chief, Science and Science On-line, April 30, 1997

AF: In some regards, I think you have the unique opportunity as Editor-in-Chief of Science to make some historic and revolutionary decisions, perhaps more than any of your twelve predecessors. Am I overstating this, or would you agree that there is something revolutionary about Science's current transformation?

FB: That's the way I took my challenge from the AAAS Board of Directors in becoming Editor-in-Chief. It was to look at what Science should become in the 21st century and get us into a configuration so that we're progressing towards that goal, rather than taking steps that would diminish our chances of continuing to be out in front in terms of distributing communications between scientists.

AF: As Editor-in-Chief, your primary responsibility is to the content of the magazine. How would you define "content" in an on-line environment?

FB: First, Science is a content-driven publication. We see ourselves as a reflection of our content and people admire the magazine because of the high standards in what we choose to publish. What the new media allow us to do, however, is to have different kinds of content. We aren't limited to only text and pictures, but can now make use of non-static images with more color, audio files, and links to a variety of sources, for example. In other words, we can make the content of the print product come alive for those who are willing to explore it through the Internet.

AF: What challenges exist in selecting and reviewing these new types of content? For instance, have you had to hire new staff members or create new modes of peer-review?

FB: For the most part, we've been able to accomplish what we feel is a quality job of replicating the print product and expanding it on-line with relatively little staff. Most of the people who are involved in the various production steps, after content has been selected and polished, have found it challenging and educational to learn how to integrate their roles with the web product. This was an unexpected, team building, conceptual add-on that was a virtue of producing the web versions of the magazine. With regard to using hyperlinks, we're fairly selective. We have an extensive set of links to archives like the National Library of Medicine. We do the linking ourselves, so we know what is at the other end. We're also pretty cautious about who we allow to link to us, although we can't really control this as much. When we do have to link to somebody else's individual web site, we almost always build that into the review process so that the same kinds of standards in that selection are consistent with other content.

AF: Would you say a little more about the review standards for content that are unique to the on-line publishing environment? Do you look for a different kind of reviewer than is common for reviewing scientific papers?

FB: Yes, we do look for a different kind of peer-reviewer. For instance, we will be presenting an experimental on-line article that will not appear in the print version. For that, we had to find some technically web-savvy people to take the time to look at this article to determine whether the technology really contributed something we could not have achieved in the print version. The reviewers that we needed to find to do this had to have access to powerful computing technology, the ability to download the necessary plug-in to view the material, and knowledge of the research being presented and the impact of the findings to the scientific community.

AF: Was the decision to run this experimental story an editorial decision or was it submitted for publication to the magazine by the authors?

FB: One of the editors of the magazine approached me with the idea. I thought it was interesting and so we approached the authors who also thought it was appealing. We each took a chance and subjected the story to a modified but rigorous peer-review process.

AF: That's very interesting. It appears that you are much more willing to experiment with the electronic version than the print version. Would you agree?

FB: I told my editors when I came, "We're Science--we should experiment."

AF: Currently your publication is in both print and electronic formats. How has this impacted your role as editor?

FB: Our initial position was that what we did on-line should compliment what we did in print. The print product was our most important and admired product. What we wanted to do, at all costs, was make the print product better and not compete with it. So our first on-line version consisted of the table of contents and an electronic section of the magazine called "Beyond the Printed Page." This section consisted of items that were related to the printed articles but took the reader into an extra dimension. Then as we gained experience and more powerful Internet tools became available to us, we were able to publish the magazine electronically in its entirety.

AF: Do you think there will be a time when your electronic version becomes the only version?

FB: I don't know that we'll ever be electronic only, although there are people who don't want to receive the print anymore because they prefer the electronic format. There are a substantial number of our subscribers who aren't wired at all who are important readers to us, and we can't change the magazine such that we leave those readers behind.

AF: Are there instances where you are making different editorial decisions for the print publication as a result of what you can do with the electronic version? For instance, what did you think about the Dallas Morning News' editorial decision to publish an article on their web site rather than waiting for the print version?

FB: Absolutely, we broke our own print embargo and published the scientific paper on the Mars rock finding on the web version of the magazine a whole day before it was to have been released in print. In fact, we have now done this twice, just recently with the brain cancer gene discovery. We broke the embargo again and mounted the paper on our web site on Wednesday instead of waiting to release the story with the print edition on the following Friday. When a paper establishes facts that are going to be popular or important, we want people to be able to access them as soon as possible, to see for themselves what the article contains and not just what a reporter drew from the press release. It is very likely that we will more and more frequently publish key stories like these electronically before they appear in print. And there is no reason we have to always release our articles Thursday afternoon at 4 o'clock. We could release an important article every day if we wanted. Interestingly, the important lesson we've learned from these two examples is that while they first bring people to the electronic version, they also result in more people wanting the printed magazine.

AF: In several articles I read in the mainstream press on the Mars rock discovery, I noticed that several scientists asked to comment on it were quoted as saying, "I haven't actually seen the paper yet, but if it’s true..." Unfortunately, they didn't know it was on the Science site a day earlier. Doesn't this raise the question of whether your readers are ready for this approach to publishing? In other words, do you think there is a "market pull" from the scientific community to provide access to these cutting-edge papers electronically?

FB: To a certain extent, we felt that we had to become leaders in electronic distribution of information or else we would lose our competitive edge in attracting the best authors. There is a definite lure of the medium pulling us to capitalize on its potential, but we've found that the more content we make available electronically, the more we are finding our readers taking the leap and accessing the web version of the magazine.

AF: Are your numbers of subscriptions consistent with this observation?

FB: Yes, we were getting about 35,000 unique visitors each week before we started requiring a $12 subscription fee for the on-line magazine. We now have over 15,000 online subscribers. While this represents a two-thirds loss in those people who were free "lurkers", about 10% of these subscribers are now also new members of the AAAS. In other words, they are not only paying the $12 fee; they are also paying $107 to become members. The curious thing we've found, however, is that only about half of those people who have paid to access the on-line version of Science have actually gone on-line and activated their subscription.

AF: That may explain the lack of participation I have noticed with some of Science's interactive forums, which are now only available to subscribers. I spoke with one of your editors today about the on-line discussion she is trying to get started related to a recent paper published in Science on the current changes underway with regard to intellectual property protections. The paper was published almost two weeks ago and I don't think anyone has posted a comment yet. Would you say that during this start-up period, you have an added responsibility to encourage your readers to get on-line and activate their subscriptions? The flip-side to this is, won't your readers also have to change their perspective of the magazine and start to view it more like a "virtual community"?

FB: We have published a series of editorials in the print magazine to extol the virtues of Science On-line and let them know what they're missing by not being part of the family. Science, because of its breadth, does have a more difficult time achieving a community spirit. Content can't be the only unifier of what we do. It has to be "scholarship" rather than trying to mobilize one discipline, which means that we're trying to encourage physicists, chemists, and biologists, for example, to all enter into common dialogues. We are about to announce a joint web site with the American Medical Association on human genetic illnesses. Science will provide the selection of linkages to genetic research and information, and the AMA will contribute the linkages to the chromosomal and disease information. An interested person could work backwards from the disease or forwards from the gene. It is our hope that this kind of resource will work as a bridge between the medical and scientific communities.

AF: I'd like to turn to the underlying technology that defines the electronic version of the magazine and management of the innovation process at the heart of its continuing evolution. Is it true that Science has outsourced much of the development and management of the technology to HighWire Press (Stanford University)?

FB: Yes, we sit down with HighWire Press each week at our post-production meeting, where we talk about problems with the web version of the magazine and features we want to add. We have a more extensive round of meetings about once a month. Then, once a quarter, we sit down and look over all of our ideas and try to prioritize them and determine what they will require in terms of time and resources. HighWire is our technology implementation consultant. We don't depend on them for ideas. However, when they develop ideas for other journals that they publish, they will frequently ask us if we're interested in mounting a similar feature. We have a very good, synergistic, and creative relationship with HighWire and I think it has worked to both of our advantages.

AF: Do you foresee a time when you will be able to bring in-house the functions carried out by HighWire Press?

FB: Well, it's really a budgeting problem. We would need a lot of staff to do what HighWire does for us on a weekly basis. Our plan all along with HighWire has been that they provide us a set of tools that we can then bring in-house. Currently, we have two staff members, a technology manager and an electronic media manager, who do most of the work that HighWire did for us, initially.

AF: I recently spoke with your technology manager, Chris Feldmeyer, who described part of the technology management system as involving "weekly philosophical meetings" during which the editors reminded each other what the objectives are with the electronic version, how they differ from the print version, what could be done differently, etc. Since I believe electronic publishing is a high-tech venture, do you think you will need a more formal technology management plan?

FB: Science is ideally placed for object-oriented, Java-applet kinds of technology where you can write little programs to do exactly what you want and then feed it into a bigger program. If we have to decide every week whether we want to go into Microsoft Word or Quark Express, the discussions would never allow us to get to the content. We have to operate with an informal system of managing the technology that is based on open-mindedness and the ability to recognize emerging problems. There is no program or tool that we are so committed to that will allow us to plan everything around its implementation. In addition, the multi-headed way in which we have to operate would make a formal plan difficult. We have so many groups that need to be coordinated, each of whom sees the medium from a slightly different perspective. It wouldn't work to have a technology group on the outside try to impose workflow decisions on them. When I first started at Science, we had a group whose task it was to devise a plan for how to create the on-line version of the magazine. What they came up with required a lot of software purchasing and lot of this and a lot of that. It was just clear to me, however, that it wasn't going to work. So, the style that we have here now works very well with the people working for the magazine. If we were a wealthy organization, we might want to have a chief technology officer who would be leading the way. Technology changes so fast and having twelve people who operate as a team in developing the technology means we get 144 times the output of one person based on their synergy and creativity.

AF: As you know, the Internet is a global medium. To what extent is that impacting some of the decisions being made for Science? Are you finding that the electronic version has the possibility to reach people where the print version was not? Also, what about countries that may censor certain publications or articles based on their content? MSNBC ran a story on the Internet in China, which has blacklisted 25 publications on the Net by URL, including the Washington Post and New York Times.

FB: The one and only place where our Board of Directors has authorized us to create electronic-only subscriptions is for China. We have a license for the country of China to take Science On-line. We'll mount our own server at a location there and we'll be the determiners of what goes on the server. We will provide Western access for the Chinese scientific community probably by this coming July. Interestingly, the Chinese have gone after this very aggressively. Also, the scientific community there has access to the most technologically advanced network backbone in China. In terms of your question of the pros and cons associated with a global medium, for us, because we are the global weekly of Science, we want to be available around the world. Before going on-line, relying on the postal service for distribution meant that our overseas subscribers were second class citizens because of the two or three week delay in getting the magazine. By distributing the same content electronically, we can, in principle, make it available to them at exactly the same time it is made available to anyone here. So that levels the playing field for that kind of competition. I should add, however, that due to bottlenecks in the backbone of the Internet, in many locations it might be very unreliable or impossible to get on-line and access the magazine. We're currently trying to devise methods for solving this problem through dedicated lines and/or the use of mirror sites in other parts of the world, but that is an added expense and we have to be certain that the revenue is there to at least neutralize these additional costs.

AF: Last question: if you were in the process of looking for your replacement, what kinds of things would you look for in your applicants?

FB: My current responsibilities as Editor-In-Chief revolve around executive-level planning and leadership, as opposed to hands-on editing of particular stories and so forth. If that is what AAAS's Board of Directors decide they want, then I think the criteria for the next person will be exactly as it was for me, except that a strong technology background will have to be part of the job description.

Wired & HotWired

Wired was founded in 1993 with much fanfare, being immediately hailed as a must-read for today's digerati. With a circulation approaching 400,000, the magazine recently won a 1997 National Magazine Award for general excellence. Wired Ventures, Inc., the privately held company that publishes the magazine, launched one of the first commercial electronic magazines three years ago, HotWired. Central in shaping the way the new interactive world "looks and feels," HotWired averages 18 million page views per month (although that includes their search engine site, HotBot), up from 1.8 million a year ago, and there are 450,000 registered users. HotWired actually styles itself as a "network" rather than a single site; its various sections each have their own domain address, such as the lively columnists and commentary in Packet and Netizen, drink-of-the-week recipes in Cocktail, the alternative medicine FAQ in Ask Dr. Weil, and the back-and-forth debate in Brain Tennis.

Louis Rossetto is the cofounder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Wire Ventures, Inc., which includes Wired, HotWired, and HardWired (a book publisher). He also serves as editor and publisher of Wired and as director of programming at HotWired. Mr. Rossetto founded Electric Word, a breakthrough computer publication in Amsterdam, in 1986. He helped launch and served as editor-in-chief of O magazine, a Dutch-language men's lifestyle publication. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science and an MBA in finance and marketing from Columbia University. He was named co-journalist of the year (along with Wired's cofounder, Jane Metcalfe) by the Society for Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter.

Conversation with Louis Rossetto,
CEO and Editor, Wired and HotWired (May 5, 1997)

AF: In the first issue of Wired you related the digital revolution to "social changes so profound their only parallel is probably the discovery of fire." How has this shaped your editorial style and vision for your magazine, especially since you launched HotWired?

LR: I think that when it comes to talking about interactive media and new media forms, you can think about it as inventing something new or you can think about it as discovering something that is basically already there, but hidden. I prefer the latter. On other occasions, I've compared what we do on the HotWired side to what Lewis and Clark did when they went out into the Louisiana territory and tried to discover what was there. They didn't invent Louisiana or the West. They tried to find out what was there and describe the land that they crossed. I think that describes somewhat what I feel about new media. It is like looking back at television or radio. People didn't exactly invent it, because now it is what it is: immutable. You can add incrementally to our knowledge of it, but you can't fundamentally change it. You can't invent some new chemical that is going to change our perception of that medium in some special way. I guess what that means is that I approach new media, no matter what the rhetoric is, with a certain amount of humility. We're not going to be able to conquer it. Instead, it is likely that new media will teach us some lessons, some of which may be very difficult to accept.

AF: As an editor, your chief responsibility lies with the production of content. How do you see the new web medium impacting this responsibility?

LR: I look at media, in general, as not just information but as comprising both experience and community. Experience, in this case, is both emotional as well as intellectual such that my mission, whether I'm working in paper or the electronic media, is to provide the best possible experience for the community of people that we're targeting or are attracted to us. The experience has to do with the nature of the medium itself, and being able to be in sync with it and exploit it to the fullest extent possible. Also, to deliver intellectually something that people aren't going to get elsewhere. I've said on numerous occasions that we're not in the "content business," but we're in the "context business." To survive in the media environment today and the future, companies cannot simply deliver raw data. For example, that is like the raw material of the planet. There are only so many large oil companies delivering that raw material. Instead, it is going to be in how you take that raw material and turn it into something of added value. The added value is the intelligence you bring to it and the context that you put it in.

AF: The reason I ask this is that in my conversation with the editor of Science magazine, we discussed this issue of what constitutes content in the electronic version of their magazine especially in the sense that what becomes value-added is what they peer-review.

LR: Citations are part of scientific publications and have always been there. When Science peer-reviews an author's scientific paper, they naturally have to examine it and figure out whether the findings are valid or not. It may turn out that the kind of filtering that scientific publications have played for their community may not be there anymore. I know there are people publishing--straight to the web--unreviewed papers, where the users become the peer-reviewers. I suppose the question is whether it is more important that everything get the imprimatur of Science or whether it is more important for ideas to get into currency faster--tested, supported or rejected faster. I don't know how the scientific community will come down on that one, but it is something that will be worked out. If Science has a place where the readers end up being the peer-reviewers, than that will alter its role as a gatekeeper to scientific information. I should also say that every medium has its own characteristics or dynamics. It would naïve to expect that skill and knowledge based in one would necessarily transfer to another. The fact that you can do radio doesn't mean that you can do television. Likewise, the fact that you can do a magazine doesn't mean you can do a book, even if they are superficially similar. It also doesn't mean that one necessarily obsoletes another either, although for certain kinds of things some media will obsolete others. For instance, television didn't obsolete the movie, but it did obsolete a certain kind of movie. It obsoleted B movies or eye-candy brain fillers that were better and more cheaply delivered through the television.

AF: That's a good point, but do you see HotWired obsoleting Wired or dramatically impacting the kinds of features or style of the print magazine?

LR: Not really. I don't see HotWired obsoleting print magazines. I don't see new media obsoleting old media. I see it changing the nature of magazines and I think we've already built that into the way we've created our magazine. Raw data and low added value that's on paper will get blown away by interactive media. Paper will remain what it is designed for, as a carrier for sensual experience literally in the material world. Beautiful graphics, fine papers create an experience that you can't possibly get off a screen at low resolution and limited color range. Also, the ability to deliver what I call "high-thought content" is very difficult in an on-screen environment. Both of these abilities are, however, characteristics of paper. That means that paper will remain an excellent medium. I also feel that there are commercial benefits. There are things you can do for advertisers, for example, who continue to support the medium, which you can't do in other media. On the other hand, the interactive space, which I'm starting to think of as multiple spaces, actually, has advantages as well. The immediacy and the ability to talk back to it are real strengths. The limitations are that you cannot deliver long pieces and instead have to deliver shorter bursts of knowledge or information.

AF: On the one hand, Wired is following a more traditional publishing trajectory, even though you are dedicated to expanding the boundaries of the print medium into new ways to enhance your reader's experience. HotWired, on the other hand, starts to look and feel more like an interactive, virtual community. Right? I can see how you are infusing the substantive content that you're developing for the magazine into this virtual community, but your objective is not to transfer one experience into the other. As an aside, when I read the on-line versions of the Washington Post or New York Times, something I try to do every day, I have found the on-line versions awkward to use, even though the content is the same for either version. The fact that it was prepared for a print-based medium first and then translated into bits doesn't mean that my ability to digest it remains the same. When I have a three-column newspaper article sitting on my desk, I can move through it very quickly, scanning some parts and reading other parts very carefully, perhaps underlining key passages. I don't think I posses the same skills or have corresponding tools available in reading the same material online.

LR: Well, you may never posses such skills. Ultimately, you have to evolve beyond that and learn the vocabulary and grammar of the new medium. I'm sure companies like the Times and Wall Street Journal have the wherewithal to survive these early days and will ultimately develop their own knowledge of this medium. Right now, however, it's still pretty primitive.

AF: What do you think is driving this push to develop and capitalize on the new digital medium? Is it the readers and/or computer users hooked into the Net? Is it the technologists, programmers, and designers who are saying "look what we can do now" so that the technology becomes a driving, innovative force in publishing in new media? Or is it your vision as the editor that is shaping the online environment?

LR: Well, it's all of the above. We are certainly bound by the limits of the technology and we adapt to it as we get more tools. The experience changes, however, when you get more bandwidth to deliver a richer set of media forms. The readers or users tell you instantaneously whether they like something or not, either by coming back and doing it again or not coming back. Also, they tell you in chat sessions or discussion spaces what's working and what isn't. Finally, yes, I have an idea what media should be and I try to infuse that into the things we do. It's not just engineers or young editors trying to figure out what's going on. It's also a sensibility about media—what will work in any medium, the way you present things—and the way you entice people to participate. The things that we need to do, ultimately, to make this medium stronger won't come about just because a new browser has been developed. In a way, what you see on the screen is only a fraction of what interactivity is all about. You don't see the underlying technology and electronic editorial tools that allow you to deliver content in multiple formats to different users. While these are crucial to being an interactive media company, they aren't really visible. However, there is a lot more involved than wheeling up a server to a T1 line and making yourself available to the 50 million people who are on the Net.

AF: Could you say a little more about the management of the technology then? I mean, do you see yourselves as not only being a content leader, but a technology leader, too? Also, could you say something about the kinds of people you need to staff the production of the print and electronic versions?

LR: It's been a struggle to figure out how to do this. What are the metaphors you use? Is it like television, print, movies, and records, in terms of how it gets produced? All of them have aspects that fit the new medium, yet it always seems different and we're still struggling to define it. In terms of my staff, the magazine consists primarily of editors and a publisher. We use producers on the web site because we are producing programs that continue to have differing half-lives and aren't as stable as a print publication, which has a trajectory toward profitability that you will stick to over a period of several years. Also, the form of the new media changes. Originally, it was more static, but gradually things are now starting to move on the screen and this requires more talents that have to be juggled. That means coordinating with engineers, different kinds of designers, and editors. So, that coordination seems much more like what a producer does on a movie than necessarily what a publisher does. People who have knowledge of different aspects of the process are going to be stronger. For example, our creative director at Wired is not just a good designer but he knows the print process intimately. He goes on press checks, talks to the pre-press people, and he knows about ink chemistry, paper, and dot gain. What he produces looks the way it does not simply because of his aesthetic sensibilities when it comes to layout, but also his ability to get the process to deliver the optimum product. That is also true for the interactive side. It is important that you know about what it takes to get moving pixels on the screen or how difficult it might be to deliver a certain kind of interactive experience. In the end, despite what I just said, however, media sensibility still trumps everything. The ability to entertain or know what entertains people or the ability to deliver context, which is about realities and objectivity of experience, is what means the most to me. You can always find someone who has the technical knowledge, but you can't always find someone who has those media instincts.

AF: In talking with the technology manager of Science magazine, he described a process of technology management that involved "weekly philosophical meetings." What this means, is that at their post-production meetings, the magazine's staff reflects on what constitutes the electronic version, how it differs from the print magazine, and what they should do differently with the next issue. To my mind, electronic publications are high-tech ventures and having to reinvent yourself every week seems like an awkward way to be technologically innovative. What do you think?

LR: I suppose in all of this there has to be a willingness to get your hands dirty, to actually get in there and experiment. It's not really abstraction. Finally, the rubber meets the road and you deliver something to someone. The only way you get to proficiency is by actually creating, and creating means experimenting. Also, being a leader in the new media means you are going to be failing and you have to accept that. Once you have found what works, then it will be obvious and everyone will do the same things you've just done. We see that a lot with the things that we're doing. But, everyone has his or her own risk profile. Regarding your question about technology innovation, something I've been saying about this new medium is that it is an experiment that is being conducted in plain sight. That, if we were trying to develop another type of technology, we would not do it in front of fifty million people who have a voice in what's going on. Usually, they are done behind closed doors, in a controlled environment, and then the results are released to some kind of test of their validity. Well, here the experiment is being conducted in front of everybody and everybody is also a participant. All sorts of expectations are put on the media, and people are under the illusion that it is developed and has reached a stage of maturity such that the populace can actually use it at large. Whereas, in fact, no, it is still an experiment and it is going to be a while before what we will then know as "interactive media" finally arrives.

AF: We are seeing a lot of partnering between publishers and high-technology companies. The Wall Street Journal has partnered with Microsoft and Science has partnered with HighWire. I'm curious whether Wired and HotWired have done this, too. How much of the technology development and management is conducted by Wired and to what extent does this effect the editorial decisions available regarding the electronic version?

LR: This is one of things that surprised me as we got into interactive media. We actually have about a thirty person engineering team. We were so early entering this market that a lot of things we needed just didn't exist so we hired the engineers to create the technology ourselves. When you don't have a lot of money to just buy yourself entry to the market at any particular point, the only way to stay in the game is to innovate. The only way to do this is have your own technologists. This doesn't mean that we don't buy technology from other people, but it means we do feel it is a core competency. In the end, there are only going to be so many people who are franchise players. As with every other business, despite complete and open access, there are only so many places you are going to go back to for the things you want. Certainly, technological competence is one of the things that can differentiate the experience in reading or using your online product. I can even argue this for newspapers. The only new successful newspaper in the country was USA Today and they did it because they built a network of regional papers to create a national paper. So, even that was technologically based.

AF: What do you think about the fact that the Internet is a global medium? Is that impacting some of the editorial or marketing decisions being made for Wired? Are you finding that the electronic version has the possibility to reach people where the print version was not? What about countries that may censor certain publications or articles based on their content, like China, which recently blacklisted 25 publications on the Net by URL, including the Washington Post and New York Times?

LR: Quite frankly, I look at it more as, "how is that policy shaping China?" more than how I use the medium. I mean, did the Great Wall of China prevent the rest of the world from developing or did it prevent the Chinese from developing? Any country that wants to cut itself off from the rest of the world, well that's their privilege. There are still four billion people outside of China. I would also argue, however, that it is impossible to keep out ideas from people who really want them, especially in this medium. You can censor the New York Times directly, but then there are still half-a-dozen ways to get to the Times without going through those censors.

AF: Last question: If you were in the process of looking for your replacement, what kinds of things would you look for?

LR: I think about this a lot, because our businesses are growing. What was once the Lewis and Clark expedition on its way to mapping the West, is becoming more like a collection of territories that now have their own populations and emerging power structures. The original pioneers might not be the right people to be engaged in the settling of those territories. Likewise, there are a different set of skills required with the new media and it's also a lot more complicated, especially with the arrival of "push". Superficially, the web looks a lot like a magazine. In fact, the metaphor has been a "page". When you start to get involved with push and moving pixels at people, the nature of the medium changes again. The skills that you possessed in working in one environment may no longer be relevant anymore, such that the ability to be a generalist across all media may not be possible anymore. So I guess I would look for multiple replacements.