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Magazine Eyeballs Its Subscribers
No_Weak_Heart writes "Talk about 'know your customers' -- the NY Times has an interesting article about Reason Magazine's upcoming June issue. Each of the print magazine's 40,000 subscribers will receive a copy of the mag with their name and a satellite photo of their home on the cover!" Although described as a "cover stunt", the magazine's editor "said that the parlor trick could have profound implications as database and printing capabilities grow."
Of course the data itself is not new and there is nothing controversial about this per se. The real issue is in the visual representation of your geographic data which demonstrates to you specifically that your home location is *known*. Of course the magazine has always *known* where you live because they mail the periodical to your house. But for some reason, showing folks information in a graphical or visual format makes it more real. Therefore, I would not say this is a gimmick, but that it would enforce the idea to those who may not think as much in their daily lives the issues of privacy and information customization and product dissemination to consumers.
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What cover will they put on newstands? The home of the person who buys the magazine? That would be impressive.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
The magazine's trick here really isn't that hard... in that for every subscriber they of course have an address, and adresseses can be converted to geographic coordinates using the same technology MapQuest has had for years. It's just a matter of getting a satellite photo that shows that coordinate as the center point, and applying the circling to the image. After that, it's just a typical variable printing job.
Modern printing technologies make it very easy for a 40,000-subscriber magazine to send out a different cover to each and every subscriber. It's just a matter of doing a 40,000 page run of each of the "customized" sets of pages with the image database available, and then the common pages can be wrapped around after printing them the typical way. Here's the homepage for VIPP, Xerox's technology for doign such "variable data" printing jobs on its industrial class printing products.
You mean when I subscribe to a magazine they know where I live????
If you're in the USA, you can see your own address plotted for yourself by TerraServer at this page here. The version that the magazine is using is likely a higher resolution source that they had to pay for. These guys even have pictures over "Area 51".
You must not be using the same internet I'm using!
cpeterso
I thought most printing press houses ran high-speed presses with no time to include a specific cover for each individual issue printed. I assume the specific cover will include the mailing address for mailing purposes. If not, associating the right issue with the right mailing label on a print line is even more of a feat. What's next? Totally individualized dead-tree magazines for every subscriber of every rag out there? This could get interesting.
I can picture the mailman with a lot of Reason subscribers...
As he delivers the magazines, he notices that the red circle is moving with him.
They know where you are, Mailman!! Run! Run!
Oh my God! A magazine has been able to successfully transform AN ADDRESS into a GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION.
Powerful indeed....
Yes, I know--they also showed they could link my address to a low-res satellite image. Good gravy, they know I live in...a light gray pixel.
It's a nice publicity stunt, but I'm not terribly concerned about my privacy being infringed by a mapping satellite. You could get *much* better pictures of my house from a private plane. Or by parking across the street with a camera. There are many real ways in which my privacy may be trampled by government or business; this just isn't one of them.
~Idarubicin