When Wired received its seed capital in the fall of 1992 to develop the magazine, one of the first people they hired was Will Kreth. Will was the `Online Ambassador' for Wired's electronic communications with its readers. With a single Macintosh SE/30, Will set up shop in the corner of the warehouse space that Wired had leased. The area was nicknamed, "the Grotto" because it soon took on a life of its own.
First, Will established Wired's online presence on the Well, a tightly knit online community of people who were mostly from the Bay Area. The Well went very deep into the Silicon Valley community and proved to be an excellent way to spread the word about Wired, attracting subscribers, investors, and writers. The Well also hosted interactive discussions about the issues raised in the magazine. Wired's thought-provoking editorials triggered intensive debates on the Well. Wired's readers on the Well became increasely involved and felt as though they were participating in the journal. Wired seemed to be developing into the first interactive magazine.
Due to Wired's rapid success on the Well, Will quickly opened up forums on the Mindvox and Onenet bulletin board systems. By November, 1993, Wired hired two interns, Julie Petersen and Matthew. It was time to expand the horizons of the online activities by offering Wired articles free to people with online access. Julie Petersen started a forum on America OnLine [AOL]. This service also offered back issues to download. While Wired was giving away its content, in return, it was receiving subscriptions and money from AOL for the time AOL's users spent in the Wired forum. Matthew developed an `Infobot', an automated emailing program, that could email articles in response to formatted email requests from interested readers.
By the beginning of 1994, Will and his team of online mediators started to notice the exponential growth of the Internet and the early development of the World Wide Web. Enter Jonathan Steuer, an Internet consultant, who began developing Wired's online strategy. Jonathan was finishing his Ph.D. dissertation at Stanford in interface design, and started working part-time with Wired. Jonathan helped develop Wired's gopher server, which allowed easier download of past articles and other information.
The
Grotto was growing quickly in both people and computers. It functioned as Wired's
gateway to the Internet. Twenty-fours hours a
day, the computers were running, creating a constant heat wave in the corner of
the office. Employees were either in the Grotto or wondering what was going
on in that `hot' corner. The Grotto had developed its own identity and staff.
It was only a matter of time before HotWired was born, Wired Venture's first presence on the World Wide Web.
Andrew Anker joined the Wired team in March, 1994 to write a business plan for HotWired. Andrew was brought on as Vice President of Technology for Wired Ventures, after leaving Sterling Payot, an investment banking firm through which Wired had been raising capital. By April, Jonathan and Andrew had developed the business plan for HotWired.
At this point, the Grotto experienced some major growth spurts. Three more interns and one person from the magazine were hired before the end of May. By July, Chip Bayers and Howard Rheingold were recruited as Managing and Executive Editors, respectively.
 |
PEOPLE | HEART | CULTURE | BUSINESS |