Fifteen years ago, way back in 1993, I picked up a new magazine at a Barnes and Noble in Buffalo, New York that was different looking from anything else in the racks. A quick flip through the pages revealed this was no ordinary publication. The dense text, the wild typography, the florescent pages were more than just eye candy. They were the runes to learning about things so new, so cutting edge that I had filled out the subscription card before I had even gotten half-way through Issue 1. Plus it had a sense of ironic humor that you just didn’t find in say, Popular Science.
I’ve been a subscriber and faithful reader ever since. It is still the one magazine I literally attack when it arrives in the mailbox each month. Even with the ever-shrinking format and the purchase by Conde Nast, the spirit of Wired is still there in the pages, as our guide to the things to come that will change our lives in the next decade and a half as much as things like the personal computer, the internet and the hybrid car have over the past 15 years.
Even if you’ve never read a single issue, the 15th anniversary issue’s manifesto on how to really start addressing the environmental problems of our fragile planet is worth the purchase of the June 2008 issue all by itself. Don’t blame me if you start wanting more on a monthly basis. (And as much as I like my reading to be digital and online, the wired.com website is just a tease for all the goodness that the printed version puts in your hands.)
Thanks, Louis Rossetto and Kevin Kelly for originally bringing us Wired and bringing us into the future, even if it has sometimes been kicking and screaming. Thanks Conde Nast for keeping the faith. I can’t wait for the next issue–and the ones for 14 years and 11 months after that.