Yeah, I wasn't the only person who found Time's "Mine" magazine disappointing.
I really don’t like golf — at all. So I was surprised when, this weekend, my first issue of Mine (Time Inc.’s slick glossy foray into custom magazine publishing) included selected articles from Golf magazine.
Nearly a month ago I signed up on the Mine site to receive five issues of this custom biweekly magazine. I opted to include articles from these titles: Time, InStyle, RealSimple, Food & Wine, and Money. My issue of Mine arrived with only three out of five right — instead of Money and Food & Wine, it included stories from Golf and Travel & Leisure.
I found this amusing, because I remember thinking when I filled out the subscription form for Mine how little information about my lifestyle, interests, or preferences Time was asking for. I wondered how any publisher could deliver anything approaching a custom magazine based on my address, picking five out of eight general-interest magazines, and my answers to these four questions that are nebulous bordering on ridiculous:
- Which do you crave more: pizza or sushi?
- Do you like to sing in the car?
- Which would you like to learn: juggling or celebrity impersonation?
- Who would you like to have dinner with most: Leonardo da Vinci or Socrates?
According to the Associated Press, my experience wasn’t unique…