Karimkhany Named General Manager of Wired News

Business Wire, July 12, 2006

NEW YORK -- Kourosh Karimkhany, a former long-time editor and business manager at Wired News, has been named General Manager of the Wired News internet business effective immediately.

The appointment, which fills an open position at Wired News, was announced today by Steve Newhouse, Chairman of Advance.net and Sarah Chubb, President of CondeNet, the Web division of Conde Nast Publications, where Karimkhany is currently director of business development.

Newhouse announced yesterday that Conde Nast was acquiring Wired News from Lycos Inc. in a deal that reunited the print and digital brands of Wired after eight years.

Karimkhany had previously served as an editor and business manager at Wired News for four years, and before that as a senior producer at Yahoo News.

"Kourosh has the perfect background as an editor and manager to continue the growth of Wired News, which was one of the first consumer Web sites," Ms. Chubb said. "Even more important, he is passionate about the Wired brand, having started his career in the online world after reading the first issue of WIRED magazine."

Karimkhany said he saw tremendous potential in the future of Wired News, which reached an audience of 2.8 million unique users according to internal server logs, and is ranked #11 worldwide among media sites by Technorati, which measures incoming links.

"The combination of a closer connection to WIRED magazine, and the unleashing of many fresh, new voices through Wired weblogs, thanks to the leadership of Editor Evan Hansen, has supercharged Wired News," Mr. Karimkhany said. "I look forward to working closely with Evan, and continuing to work with WIRED magazine editor, Chris Anderson, to make Wired News one of the most compelling destinations on the Web."

Anderson said he was excited to collaborate with Karimkhany.

"Kourosh has a rare combination of qualities, ranging from true Wired DNA to a deep experience with new media, that make him ideal to lead the online side of our now-combined brands," Mr. Anderson said. "In my time working with him he's shown both solid editorial judgment and a keen nose for the techniques and trends that point the way forward for online media. I'm delighted that we can now put that partnership to work on Wired's web side directly, and I'm confident that great things await."