In 1986, Language Technology was not just a magazine about technology. Using new software technology, it also quickly emerged as an innovator in magazine design and publishing. The first issue was published using Ready Set Go, and the following issues were produced with Pagemaker 1.0. However, after only six months, the investors of its parent, Ink, insisted that the magazine be closed to free up some cash flow for Ink's core business.
When Louis realized that the magazine's funding was about to disappear, he began to look for new investors. He eventually found a successful, local entrepreneur with publishing aspirations and an investment banker who had just left Soloman Brothers. While the new investors were mildly interested in Language Technology, they were even more interested in Louis' method of technology publishing for other magazines that they planned to start.
The new investors took over Language Technology in 1987. The name was changed to Electric Word, signifing a broader scope. Only a few months after Louis and his small team had settled in the new location and had began recasting Language Technology into Electric Word, the new owners started a men's magazine in the Esquire-fashion called O. They appointed Louis to Editor-in-Chief. Meanwhile, after doing some freelance advertising sales for the Language Technology, Jane started full-time as Electric Word's Director of Marketing.
The new owner soon manifested even greater ambitions by buying various magazine titles across Western Europe, attempting to leverage a core publishing business into a media empire. (which was a common pattern in the late 1980s.) However, it soon became apparent to Louis and Jane that the owner was stretched thin and his funding was not going to last much longer. "The writing was on the wall," recalled Louis. So, Louis and Jane took off to the US to do some field reporting, and more importantly, enlarging their network of collegues and friends.
In Febuary, 1990, after receiving an invitation from Nicholas Negroponte, Louis and Jane went to TED2 (the second Technology, Entertainment and Design Conference) in California. This huge event was critical for the early formation of Wired's network.
"It's an unbelievable network. Ever since plugging into this [TED] network, I never ceased to be amazed by how deep and diverse it is," said Jane.
"We were out there on our own. Amsterdam is sort of off the path. We had a unique perspective on what was going on, and we just reported on what we thought was important. Which was cool because everybody here [in California] only reported on what was going on around them, and so we had this really different perspective on Europe and Japan....,"said Louis.
"We were the only English language source of information about what was going on in France, Germany, and Italy... and one of the single information sources that actually crossed different subject boundaries, from machine translation to speech synthesis. From the beginning, it was part of our mission to spread the word about how these technologies interact with communications and human interaction," said Jane.
After their spring US tour, Jane and Louis returned to Amsterdam in May, 1990 with an enough content to fill the next issue of Electric Word. Also, they had brought back an early edition of Photoshop and were eager to explore the new software technology. But despite all the new energy that Louis and Jane possessed on their return, the funding for Electric Word had run out, just as Louis had expected.
As Louis and Jane had already assembled all the necessary material,
they convinced the owners to publish a final issue. This last issue
was the first instance using Photoshop to produce a magazine cover. The cover
hosted a picture of Nicholas Negroponte, whose picture is now, ironicly, on the
last page of every issue of Wired. The issue was, in effect, an early
prototype leading to Wired's future design strategy.
Louis began looking for new investment. He came very close to continuing Electric Word within Rupert Murdock's British operation. However, two weeks before the deal was supposed to be signed, Murdock's Australian bankers clamped down on all new business development, including Electric Word.
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