Great stuff in June Wired Magazine but where’s the web extras?

Wired Magazine has gone through many phases since 1993, when it seemed like the greatest and most original periodical of the day. Over the past few years, I’ve been feeling less excited reading the issues — it was getting a little stale, kind of predictable. But the June issue, which arrived on Saturday, stunned me with more freshness and geeky goodness than I’d read in a while. I sometimes note products or albums or books mentioned in articles and even the ads that I’m not familiar with and want to follow-up on. In this issue, there were six, a new record. For the record, they were:

—Musician Tim Fite and his new album, Fair Ain’t Fair.
–Any books or articles by spam fighter Bob Servant.
–The Olympus E420 digital SLR camera.
—Version 4.0 of Dungeons and Dragons, coming out June 6.
–The Chumby wifi Internet widget display.
–Logitech’s Squeezebox Duet remote control.

There was much to hold my attention among the longer articles, too. The cover story questioning environmental priorities was well worth reading — even considering that the refutation they also published by Worldchanging.com editor Alex Steffen was far more credible than the main piece. The brain scan story was fascinating as was the profile of jailed Amazon researcher Marc van Roosmalen. I also liked the interview with Battlestar Galactica creator Ron Moore. The interview was short, though and promised more if I clicked my way over to Wired.com/extras.

One big problem: the web site is all about the previous issue with Steve Carell on the cover. There’s nothing online from the current issue yet and certainly none of the online extras like the extended Moore interview. So Wired magazine, at the cutting edge of the cutting edge of media, which recently published an entire cover story about the value of giving things away for free, is holding back magazine content from the web for some indeterminate delay. How very un-Wired.

Full disclosure: I have at various times freelanced for Wired (see my professional clips page) and worked with several of the current editors at The Industry Standard.