This image was lost some time after publication.

When Condé Nast announced last night that it bought Wired News, the press acted like Wired was rescuing a desperate crew of disaster survivors. According to a friend of Valleywag at Wired HQ, that's exactly what happened.

At about 5pm, we got an office wide email asking us to meet up in the main conference room. We got there, and Chris [Anderson, Wired's editor-in-chief] gives us the announcement — it came as a pretty big surprise to most of us.

Chris described it as a deal "eight years in the making" and then opened the floor to questions. One senior ed, half kidding, asked "does this mean we're going to have more work?"

Chris said,"No. We'll run them as separate companies for now, and work on things closer in the future."

After that, we dispersed, and some went to across the hall to meet the new coworkers. It was not unlike the episode of Lost when the tail-end passengers appeared out of the jungle, tired and hungry. Those poor guys have been working on a tough budget for awhile now.

Picture: The Obvious [Splash page]
Earlier: Condé Nast bought Wired News: What that means
Earlier: What Chris Anderson told me before Condé Nast bought Wired News