Wired.com is the online counterpart to Wired magazine, a techiefied geek mag (i'll admit that I did enjoy reading it...ahem). The magazine is...well, it's geek sleek. Unfortunately the same can't be said for Wired.com. The layout leaves a lot to be desired...as does the navigation...as does the style, in fact the whole thing is just plain awful. Of course there are worse sites around (hello independent online) but i'm not reviewing them now, am I?!
My main issue I would have with Wired.com is the sheer amount of text that is on the page. In this article about crazed internet lovers there are 3 solid pages of writing, if I had to take a guestimation, i'd say about 1000 words per page. Now, I may not be the sharpest tool in the box, but I invite you to try and find anyone who can read that much on a computer screen without going blind.
Like most online counterparts the content is also no different to the content that you would find in the magazine, which is a shame really, of course not all magazines can afford to pay for a whole new team to create an online equivalent to such a high standard, but I would have thought with a magazine such as wired, where it's key readers probably live on the computer, they would have made the effort to appease them. The only difference between the magazine and website is the full transcript of the IM conversations had. Oh joy.
In general, other than the content and writing style, there isn't anything I like about wired.com. 'Yeah, so, the journalist is good, what's the problem?!' I hear you saying. If journalism was purely about the writing, why not just print it on the back of a toilet role and be done with it? It's the whole package, as they say, and wired.com is sorely missing a large chunk of it.
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