Reuters ran a story today about Lycos selling Wired.com and related "wired" branded Web sites to Advance Publication the publisher of Wired magazine.

The history: In 1999 Wired the magazine was sold to Advance Publications and Wired.com was sold to Lycos.

Yours truly had a part to play in this 1999 deal. In 1998 all of the Wired properties were put on the market. There were no takers for the lot. At the time I was CEO of Mecklermedia. I approached the Wired management and convinced them that it would not be very complicated to separate the two properties (the magazine and the Web site). I had a deal worked out, but a variety of complications arose and the deal for Mecklermedia to purchase Wired.com fell apart. A few months later the exact deal I had worked out came about as Advance Publications bought the magazine and Lycos purchased the Web site.

And now, quite appropriately, Lycos has sold the Wired.com URL back to the magazine for $25 million.

Upon reading the story I decided during my travels today to purchase a copy of Wired magazine. Reading it brought back memories of the 1990s when Wired magazine was the pulse of the Internet age. The magazine still has the same graphics and much of the edge of those early Internet days. I believe the magazine is doing well and now that it will be joined again with the Wired URL the whole enterprise should reach new financial heights.