Wired is a successful magazine, selling about 755,000 copies a month as it covers the intersections of

 But its website, Wired.com has not worked out well as a digital arm for the magazine, said Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson. 

And as the reading world increasingly heads online, Wired is pinning its future business hopes on people subscribing through their iPads and other tablet computers, not on Web readers, Anderson said.

"You could easily say this is wishful thinking — this is an industry (magazines) that peaked in the 20th century," he told a crowd Thursday at Rochester Institute of Technology. But publishing company Conde Nast's record magazine circulation figures in 2009 indicate "there is still an appetite for a deeper immersive (reading) experience," Anderson said. "The fact is, books still work.

"And the Web is not the answer."

Anderson was one of the speakers at RIT's "The Future of Reading," a four-day conference about how digital media and changing technologies are altering the business and very act of reading. The conference runs through Saturday.

His talk revolved around Wired's launch last week of a $4.99 iPad app that lets users read a digital version of the magazine similar — but not identical to — the print edition. Wired in 10 days sold 80,000 copies of the app, which is about equal to its monthly newsstand sales, Anderson said.

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