R A N T S   &   R A V E S    Issue 2.11 - November 1996



  Bye Design?

I subscribed to Wired because I was impressed by the content, not the layout. The layout is getting fussier, jazzier and less clear.

Those who only care about the layout can put the pages on the wall and admire them from the other side of the room. Those of us who want to read them would prefer the text pages to be less obscure and cluttered. Please tell your designers their job is not to flaunt their new software, nor their perception of fashionable design, but to ease communication. Thank you.

Laurie van Someren
laurie@aleph1.co.uk

Wired started off as a challenging exploration of new ways to navigate round a magazine, with superb imaging, illustration and photography. All too often these days it seems willful and often perverse. Design, especially graphic design, is a medium between idea and interpretation. How efficient a medium of transport of idea is Wired these days? But then I guess you have to measure that against how much you value the ideas!

Matt Jones
matt@delphi.co.uk

  URLs et al

As a regular reader, I was disappointed several times in the August issue. In particular, a number of articles discussing Web sites failed to give URL references (Lillian Too's feng shui site, for example). These can be a pain to find even with the best search engines: as you know, dirty deeds can be done to place some sites at the head of the queue, even when they don't deserve to be. So please, can you note URLs if you have them?

And while I'm moaning, why don't you give more (some?) mentions to what is going on in newsgroups? Their interactivity is much greater than any Web setup. Failing to look at this aspect of the Internet leaves the impression that you are really only interested in the traditional publishing idea of "one to many" rather than the liberating "many to many" idea underlying the Internet. Finally, I have begun to notice words split in the middle of a line in some art-icles with a hyphen. Is this a des-ign fea-ture or simply poor proofread-ing? If you need an occasional proofreader we can discuss terms.

Jim Moody
jim@duntone.demon.co.uk

First: congratulations on Wired, I'm at the letterbox every month waiting on it and I devour it page by page.

Second: I read Wired anywhere and everywhere and then take it to a computer to check out some of the URLs. I often remember vaguely that there's a Web page out there that's important to me, but it's hard work finding the page with the crucial address. Any chance of a cheat sheet of URLs in the issue? Better yet, any chance of being emailed with the list via HotWired?

Martin Rosser
martin@siriusb.demon.co.uk

We're working on it! Meanwhile, try www.wired.com/.

  Trading Places

George Graham ("Market Remakers", Wired 2.07) seems to have got his history mixed up with his futures index.

He seems to think that the City of London may be beaten on the international markets because the other trading floors have better touchscreens and faster systems.

But to quote Mr Graham: "On the face of it, the idea of London as a Hartford in the making is faintly ridiculous." Well yes, it is. For a start the fastest trader doesn't always win, the best trader does. All traders have formulae to help them decide how the market might develop, but at the end of the day they use their judgement.

Graham is right to say that automation of share trading is changing the business, but the business thrives on volatility and that cannot be programmed for. He claims that the technology will decide where the market resides, not the people, and then says that Paris has the better system for automated trading, yet London is still the trading centre of Europe.

There seems little point in speculating on what effect these new communications technologies and trading system will have on either the geographical location or profitability of trading floors. What is of interest is how a system might be used and how that may affect the type and rate of trading that occurs. Rich traders don't just gravitate to London for the pay or the computer systems. It may have something to do with what London and New York have to offer as cities that Hartford doesn't.

Martin Bartle
martin@delve.co.uk

  A Sucker for Drucker

Peter Drucker is phenomenal ("The Relentless Contrarian", Wired 2.08). At his age, coming up with such great insights!

The idea that industries never break even is one I've held since I was at The Wall Street Journal editorialising on the energy crisis. In fact, more money has been spent looking for gas and oil than has been recovered from the sale of the stuff found so far. Think of how much investment there has been in writing books and how little has been earned by authors and publishers. This is because in a thriving capitalist system there is more failure than success. It's also why there should be no capital gains tax - over time, there is no net capital gain. To get investors willing to loose more money on wildcat projects than they are likely to recover, you cannot burden them with a capital gains tax that pushes the return on investment below zero.

We read all kinds of stuff here at Polyconomics. To come across a Drucker interview in Wired is another reminder of how little net return we get from our investment of time in the business magazines which should be printing these pieces.

Jude Wanniski
jwanniski@polyconomics.com

  Sleeping With the Enemy

Funny. I didn't read the wedding notice in the Telegraph, but someone at Wired is obviously sleeping with Ajaz Ahmed ("The Brand is Dead, Long Live the Brand", Wired 2.09). I can see no other reason why you would give three pages over to an advert thinly disguised as "cutting edge" Internet marketing spiel.

Anyone involved with the BMW site needs all the editorial coverage they can get - it's not exactly going to bring work flooding through the door on its own. But is Wired now offering everyone in the business 2,000 words (and a pay cheque?) to say how great they are and how pathetic the competition is?

Rael A. Fenchurch
rael@midnight.org