Mine Magazine – Me, Me, Me, Mine, All Mine!

April 8, 2009
By GAIL NICKEL-KAILING
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For years we’ve talked about how VDP (Variable Data Printing) cuts waste by zeroing in with content that people WANT to get. Now we see VDP (Variable Data Publishing) take the concept of personalized production further with a “news aggregation” model more like that offered by online news sites.

Early Wednesday morning, March 18, I received a Tweet from a friend that said;

“Time Inc customized magazine tries to mimic Internet in printed form with personalized news feeds http://tinyurl.com/cmr3n3.“

OK, so I didn’t read it at 3:30AM Pacific time when it was sent from Boston; but within hours, I had already subscribed to mine magazine.

Two weeks later, at On Demand Expo, in Philadelphia, I sat down with Val DiGiacinto, VP Sales, from The Ace Group, the company that is handling the production of mine magazine. He filled me in on the project and its progress. Clearly he’s excited about being part of something new and different!

Get Mine: Could a personalized magazine help save print media?

Full article: Get Mine: Could a personalized magazine help save print media?
By Farhad Manjoo
Slate Magazine

When I signed up for Mine a couple of months ago, I was mainly looking for a laugh. The new magazine from Time Inc. seemed like a gimmicky, goofy effort to save a beleaguered industry: Time wanted to print a magazine just for me! First, I had to choose several popular Time publications and answer a few odd questions about my interests. (“Which do you crave more—sushi, or pizza?”) Then, every two weeks, I would get an issue, curated just for me, filled with articles from different magazines. The process seemed hopelessly anachronistic, like if the horse-and-buggy industry decided to compete with cars by letting me pick my buggy driver. Doesn’t Time know that I already have a way to get a magazine tailored to my interests? The Web isn’t just faster and cheaper than print; it also doesn’t need to know what I ate for dinner in order to let me read exactly what I want to at any time…

Full article: Get Mine: Could a personalized magazine help save print media?