Wired Digital announced this morning that it had acquired Reddit, a "social" news service much like Digg, for an undisclosed sum. Read/Write covers the basics of the deal, while ValleyWag highlights the best comment on the deal, a parody of a popular Wired Magazine editorial gimmick: "Tired: Asking how much Reddit was bought for. Wired: Buying Reddit yourself."

Let's cut to the chase: This is a smart move, adding much needed tech chops and entrepreneurial spirit to the Newhouse magazine empire that has, until recently, been what we call a "late adopter."

Like Digg, and the re-invented Netscape.com, Reddit allows users to submit headline links, and then vote for the ones they like most. The more votes a story gets, the higher up the home page it goes. Though not as high profile as its competition, Reddit has a loyal audience and reportedly about one million unique visitors a month. It had already struck deals with Conde Nast to power the site Lipstick.com, and Slate to deliver a social news page at slate.reddit.com.

The meta story in all this is the rise of Wired Digital within Conde Nast. Conde Nast purchased Wired.com this summer from Daum Communications, where the site had languished after its separation from its sibling magazine during the boom. Finally reunited - and under the presumably firm hand of Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson (of Long Tail fame) - the Wired branch of the Conde Nast family seems to be stirring things up. Writes Anderson on his blog this morning: "After we bought back our site in July, I promised that more was to come...."