Admittedly I'm a bit confused by this launch as they not only starve a site like Wired.com for resources which has incredible natural potential for online growth and has lost share over the last year. They also seem to be taking missteps with Epicurious.com, a site that was by anyone's measure king of the food website hill for much of this past decade and in recent years has also managed to loose market share while competitors continue to innovate.
All this while they decide to shut down not only Gourmet magazine but also Gourmet.com which will be folded back into Epicurious. Over the last two years Gourmet seemed to be putting resources against curating a beautiful (albeit not the most technologically progressive) site. Pull Gourrmet.com up on your browser while you still can and compare it to any of the many food sites out there and you will notice that whether you like it or not Gourmet has a look and a flair all it's own...It has style and voice, a rare thing on the over aggregated underfunded editorial web.
The story of Gourmet.com is a cruel reminder that style alone is not enough to succeed on the internet, media companies must employ strategy to compliment content. They must innovate and adapt to the medium in order to survive. There's no reason the web cannot get smarter and sexier, except for lack of vision and passion.