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Magazine Eyeballs Its Subscribers 301

Posted by simoniker from the we-know-where-you-live dept.
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."
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Magazine Eyeballs Its Subscribers More

Magazine Eyeballs Its Subscribers

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  • Wouldn't it be better... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nea Ciupala ( 581705 ) * on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:15PM (#8772673)
    If they sent it directly to your gmail account?

  • slow news day? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shakrai ( 717556 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:15PM (#8772675) Journal

    This is your rights online? I guess it must be a slow newsday. It might be useful for showing John Q. Public exactly how powerful these systems have become but somehow I doubt that will happen. The article even states this:

    In some respects, Reason's cover stunt is less Big Brother than one more demonstration that micromarketing is here to stay. "My son gets sports catalogs where his name is imprinted on the jerseys that are on the cover," Mr. Rotenberg said. "He thinks that's very cool."

    On the flipside I suppose this justifies my paranoia in continuing to use a P.O. Box for all my mail. And to think I only got the P.O. Box because I was worried about my neighbors stealing my mail. I wonder if my copy would have the Post Office circled?

    • Re:slow news day? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BlewScreen ( 159261 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:21PM (#8772739)
      I'll let you know - I've been using a Mailboxes Etc. (now the UPS Store) address for the past six years and that's the address my issue of Reason will be sent to...

      As for showing John Q. Public how powerful these systems are... You should try reading some of the stuff on privacy at Reason's website [reason.com]. Often times, the stuff there is (believe it or not) more insightful than the stuff posted here!!!

      I don't think the average Reason subscriber will be all that surprised that their house is on the cover. I'll even bet that a good portion DO have the post office or a PMB or other mail drop circled.

      -bs

      • Re:slow news day? (Score:5, Informative)

        by nolife ( 233813 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @05:02PM (#8773116) Homepage Journal
        My county [pwcgov.org] has mapping [pwcgov.org] tools online. It provides detailed overhead views, demographic info, and many useful tools, including tax and assessment information.

        Not my address but you can enter 10604 Bristow Road [pwcgov.org] as a good search example of what they offer.
        The concept and amount of imformation they have does not really bother me.

        I doubt they will stand the /. effect...

      • Re:slow news day? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Idarubicin ( 579475 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @05:12PM (#8773222) Journal
        As for showing John Q. Public how powerful these systems are... You should try reading some of the stuff on privacy at Reason's website. Often times, the stuff there is (believe it or not) more insightful than the stuff posted here!!!

        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.

    • It might be useful for showing John Q. Public exactly how powerful these systems have become

      Except it's only happening on the cover of Reason.

      It's a libertarian magazine. Nobody of any significance to the American political process would be caught dead reading it. Sorry to be the troller of bad news, but there just isn't enough support between the donkeys and the elephants to make any difference at all.

      • Re:slow news day? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Shakrai ( 717556 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:27PM (#8772799) Journal
        Except it's only happening on the cover of Reason.

        A good point but all that needs to happen is for enough people to take notice. Then the mainstream press will pick up on it. This happens all the time for good or bad. The mainstream press ignores stories until the niche press (for lack of a better word) picks up on it and broadcasts it in everybody's face... then the mainstream is "forced" to follow it.

        Fox News will break a story like this and "force" the more mainstream media outlets (CNN, CBS, etc) to carry a story. At least this time it would presumably be doing some good.

    • Re:slow news day? (Score:5, Informative)

      by BlewScreen ( 159261 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:35PM (#8772878)
      Also - from Reason's hit and run section [reason.com]:

      Most subscribers will receive an issue that features four cover pages of intensely personalized information, a demonstration of bleeding-edge technology that may one day allow for mass-customized and hyper-individualized print publications (btw, pace the Times' headline, our monthly print circulation totals about 55,000).

      So it's not just the cover...

      -bs

      • Most subscribers will receive an issue that features four cover pages of intensely personalized information

        Having to compete with web portals that tailor themselves to the personal preferences of readers is likely to drive print publications this way, as will advertisers. What a lot of magazine subscribers don't realize is that there's already some customization going on. For example, DaimlerChrysler might buy a full-page ad in $MAGAZINE, which serves up different ads based on zip(+4) codes:

        • High-inc

  • usually, I am paranoid, this though? no. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:16PM (#8772679)
    BFD. I routinely get the coordinates for addresses (usually geocaches [geocaching.com] but sometimes business addressses and residences) and make both standard Mapquest maps and aerial/topo maps of the location. Terraserver [terraserver.com] is quick and easy to use if you don't have access to some of the scripts out there for this...

    How does this have far reaching implications? The information is freely and easily accessible. As databases grow? The information is out there now... It's not exactly as if magazines selling your name/address to others is a new/novel idea. It's been going on for ages.

    Perhaps if they had your name and your CURRENT, exact, location on file I would be more concerned...

    • Re:usually, I am paranoid, this though? no. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tgd ( 2822 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:19PM (#8772723)
      I think the point is some people don't think about/realize that the ability to integrate information like that is so easy.

      Plus its pretty damn cool they can demand print the magazine covers.

      Obviously its a stunt, though... anyone who subscribes to a libertarian magazine probably understands those issues anyway... its a rallying call for them.
    • ...you got a mobile phone?

      Is "Current Location" down to a couple of meters considered exact enough?

    • Re:usually, I am paranoid, this though? no. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LurkerXXX ( 667952 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:53PM (#8773054)
      Actually, what impressed me was not the fact that they could get an image of the subscribers address, but that they could obtain it, print it, and include it in a normal magazine publishing run as anywhere near a reasonable cost!

      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.

  • Visual representation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) * on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:16PM (#8772693) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Re:Visual representation (Score:3, Interesting)

      by glorf ( 94990 )
      Yes, visual representation does tend to "drive the point home" so to speak :)

      Back in the mid 90s I used to get the MAKE MONEY FAST e-mails all the time with all the addresses to which I was supposed to send a dollar. I would reply to the e-mail with an attached mapquest map to the last address and a note saying that even if only 1 in a million internet users was a complete psycho, they had just given their home address to dozens of complete psychos. Never did get any replies thanking me for pointing out th
    • 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.

      Ok... so now instead of having a detached, intellectual knowledge th
    • showing folks information in a graphical or visual format makes it more real

      I agree. As a demo to a new government GIS system I'm working on, I created a web service: enter any street address in New York, and you get spit back a 1 pixel/foot aerial photo of the property embedded with the parcel boundaries. The premise is to settle border disputes between neighbours without going to the planner's office for the plat blueprints. And some people are just shocked that we have the ability to do this...they'

  • newstand copies? (Score:5, Funny)

    by guacamolefoo ( 577448 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:18PM (#8772703) Homepage Journal
    What cover will they put on newstands? The home of the person who buys the magazine? That would be impressive.

    GF.
    • Clearly a photo of the newstand itself would be technically correct. :)

    • Re:newstand copies? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:25PM (#8772779)
      If I see a copy with my home at the newsstand, I'll buy it :)
    • also..
      Can you get a magazine to a PO Box? Its not like its sent fedex. Whats it going to have on the cover, a top view of the post office maybe?
    • FYI: Most newstands in 2011 are RFID-ready - that means that when you walk by the stand in your hip new RFID-laden clothing, your info is cross-ref'd and used to dynamically set the price and update the e-Ink covers for maximum purchase probability. If the newstand detects a human presence, but NO RFID, then it will assume you're an anonymous terrorist and report your location to the Ministry of Bush.

      --

    • Guy: Hey, they goofed! This just shows a stream grate. Where's my apartment?
      Newsie: That's next month's issue, just came in.
      Guy: Uh-oh.

  • It's a rather easy magic trick to pull off... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:18PM (#8772710)
    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 [mapquest.com] 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.com], Xerox's technology for doign such "variable data" printing jobs on its industrial class printing products.

    • Re:It's a rather easy magic trick to pull off... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by IamGarageGuy 2 ( 687655 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:24PM (#8772768) Journal
      This may be "easy" technically, but in practice it is a very large job. Digital printing has been able to do this for a while but the logistics has been difficult. Putting a sticker with the address on it after the run and during the shipping process has been the norm since the subscription idea started. A major magazine doing it with a 40,000 person database is a big deal. This may be the start of all the pipe dreams of personalized one-to-one advertising that have been around the printing industry for years.

      • Re:It's a rather easy magic trick to pull off... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:32PM (#8772858)
        One-to-one advertising has existed for years. During the dot-com bubble I worked for a company that specialized in doing it. [fluenttech.com] Really, it's just a matter that you don't usually realize that something you're reading has been customized to you because you don't have somebody else's copy to hold next to it, and the changing of content often subtile enough not to scare you, unlike this one where the customization screams out that it's just for you.
        • I will aggree that localised (?) one-to-one has been around a while, but the size of this project is the where it gets interesting. How many Indigo presses get used for this type of project as opposed to the 5-10 split runs out of a 50,000 run that are more of the norm. This is a leap in that each issue is a separate image and has to be treated as such instead of "the run for X region and the run for Y region". Publishers should and will take notice and start to demand the same treatment for their own magaz
          • Only the cover sheet (which represnts the cover, page one, the last page, and back cover) needs to be localized for this stunt. There are single-machine printers that could run this off in a matter of a few hours. We're only talking 40,000 impressions here, there's no need to print any locations that don't have a copy headed there.

            The rest of the magazine cna be printed as normal, and just inserted into each cover sheet.
      • Yeah, this is an big (odd) run, but it was doable when I worked in Mag production 4 years ago (RR Donnelley and Sons, Glasgow Manufacturing, PC Mag, Yahoo Internet Life, Oprah, Brides, Southern Living, Esquire, and many more). 40,000 mags on a patent line with a fixed maverick (High speed inkjet on the mag binder, the thing that prints the address) You could run before lunch if the makeready was done beforehand. Probably a 4 hr makeready, and Mavericks will always slow a line down, so worst case, you are
    • 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

      Yeah, it's 'just' a matter of doing that. The magazine I edit has roughly a 40,000 print run, and if I proposed doing a different cover for every single copy, the production director would have a heart attack, the finance director would explode and the printers would be yelling "Ka-ching!"

      Hell, it's hard enough trying to wring the money out of them for a split-run cover with just *tw

  • OMG (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:19PM (#8772713)
    You mean when I subscribe to a magazine they know where I live????

  • A-ha! (Score:3, Funny)

    by __aagctu1952 ( 768423 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:19PM (#8772715)
    So that's why the NYT wants us to register! But I'm way ahead of them... the way I've polished my tin foil hat lately all they'll pick up from my location is their own flash! Hah!

    ... whaddayamean satellites don't use flash photography..?

  • Cusomized (Score:5, Informative)

    by shystershep ( 643874 ) * <bdshepherd@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:19PM (#8772716) Homepage Journal
    "What if you received a magazine that only had stories and ads that you were interested in and pertained to you?"

    They already have this. It's called the internet.

    Personally, the fact that this is cheap enough to be feasible for a print medium is far more impressive to me than the fact that it is technically possible.

  • Streisand wouldn't approve (Score:3, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:19PM (#8772717) Homepage Journal
    Seems something like this happened not so long ago in California and somebody [siliconvalley.com] got upset.

  • When will... (Score:3, Funny)

    by tds67 ( 670584 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:19PM (#8772718)
    ...the satellite image be taken? I want to do some nude sunbathing in the backyard when it happens.

  • What if... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Seoulstriker ( 748895 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:19PM (#8772720)
    What if I live underground like the Mole People?

  • Facilitation of voyeurism (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:19PM (#8772724) Homepage
    they will see on the cover a satellite photo of a neighborhood - their own neighborhood. And their house will be graphically circled.

    Hopefully some of the subscribers live in neighborhoods with a lot of rooftop pools--and pool parties.

  • PO Box (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:20PM (#8772731)
    My mailing address is a PO Box. Heh. Go get'em, Reason.

    • Re:PO Box (Score:3, Insightful)

      by po8 ( 187055 )

      This will make it all the more impressive when your home's photo is on your cover anyhow.

      I doubt it's that hard to cross your PO box with a dozen other databases. Do you use a different box for your Reason account than for other mail? Have you ever given anyone your current geographic address?

      Face it, in this modern world it's only a few minutes for a determined adversary from any piece of identifying info to lat/long for the incoming ordinance.

  • I can see her house from here! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:21PM (#8772736)
    "Hey! I can see that cute chick's house from here! Hey, what's she doing to the fireplace?"
    - Some Architect Dude

  • The slippery slope (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:21PM (#8772737)
    The reason this is a big deal is not because they have a satellite photo of your house. Everyone with a brain knows that information is out there on terraserver and a dozen other services.

    The problem with this stunt is that it is a harbinger of things to come. When marketers are able to fully customize each page of a magazine to appeal to a particular consumer, they will acquire a lot of personal information from tens or hundreds of different marketing databases in order to do so.

    In essence, the improvements in printing technology that made this possible will contribute to the proliferation of your personal information.

    The only way to solve this is to implement EU-style privacy protections at the Federal level. We need to ask ourselves - who's looking out for you? It's obviously not our government.

  • There is no Right to Privacy (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is Constitutional "right to privacy". Some try to conjure one out of the Ninth Amendment, but the same tactic can be used to conjure a "right to security" or something else that cancels it out. Some try to conjure it out of the 4th Amendment, but it is a real stretch to apply this to information that is hundreds of miles from your house and person.

    I think there should be a "right to privacy", but it just isn't there in the Constitution. Judges who conjure one out of thin air can just as easily make i

  • Easier than a zip code? (Score:3, Funny)

    by mgs1000 ( 583340 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:21PM (#8772743) Journal
    Maybe they just have a lot of problems with the Postal Service delivering their magazine to the wrong address.

  • Printing? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jhaberman ( 246905 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:22PM (#8772754)
    I wonder if they will use an HP/Indigo DigitalPress. These things are monster offset printers that can do huge jobs, but are able to print a different image/source on each successive page.

    They are really quite amazing.

    Check them here: HP.com [hp.com]

    • Re:Printing? (Score:4, Informative)

      by plover ( 150551 ) * on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:27PM (#8772798) Homepage Journal
      RTFA.

      "Rodger Cosgrove, president of Entremedia, a direct marketing firm and a member of Reason's board, assisted in coming up with a program that allows the subscriber list to be integrated with satellite photographs. He also worked with Xeikon, the manufacturer of the printer that made the endless customization possible."

  • Do it yourself... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:23PM (#8772762)
    If you're in the USA, you can see your own address plotted for yourself by TerraServer at this page here. [terraserver.com] 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" [terraserver.com].
    • I use http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ - yes, it's by Microsoft/MSN, but it allows you to go to higher resolution than TerraServer.com permits for unregistered/nonpaying users.

      An equivalent site (mirror?) though still made by MS is is http://terraserver-usa.com/.
  • ...if you live in Missouri [terraserver.com] (microscope not included).
  • I hope they didnt take the photo of my home while I was sunbathing in the nude on the roof-deck!

  • Dated photographs reduce the shock effect (Score:5, Funny)

    by Slightly Askew ( 638918 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:29PM (#8772827) Journal
    You mean it will be interesting for the people whose houses are more than 10 years old. The satellite photos on the public databases are so dated it's ridiculous. Wow look, I got a magazine with a picture of a corn field on the cover!

  • Customized Home & Garden's Magazine (Score:5, Funny)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:32PM (#8772850)
    The real killer app will be when Home & Garden's magazine zooms in on your home and analyzes your landscaping and house. Different people might get different covers and articles on rejuvenating dead lawns, trimming overgrown trees, or xeriscaping. You might even discover you've won the contest for most beautiful garden with an aerial view.

    And they could even analyze your house & land for marketing opportunities. If the satellite veiw is oblique and the paint is peeling, they could forward your name to the local aluminum siding company or house painters.

    Time to get a PO box!
    • A customized magazine. One article from Home & Garden (approximately never, for me anyway,) an article from Wired, the occasional Jolene Blalock pictorial (often please,) maybe some stuff from Scientic American about oceanography and you have a fine magazine.

      There just aren't many big name magazines out htere that are independent. As in all mass media these days, a few players hold most of the marbles. It stands to reason that each large company could cherry pick from tehir different lines to make a su
    • Even worse, they could address it to your wife with a picture of the neighbor's lawn on the cover.

      "Look how nice and neat the Jones' yard is! [shuffles in front of the TV to block your view of the big game] Why doesn't ours look like that?!"

  • Costs somewhat offset... (Score:4, Funny)

    by tbase ( 666607 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:33PM (#8772859)
    ...by the discount the post office gives them for the thoughtfully included map to the delivery address on the cover.

  • And what if... (Score:2, Funny)

    by hussar ( 87373 )
    ...you live in Area 51?

  • Are their intentions menat to be ironic or not? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by base_chakra ( 230686 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:36PM (#8772887)
    Ostensibly, the main idea was to make readers more aware of the realities of living life as a row in a database. But then there's Chief Editor Gillispie's closing quote: "What if you received a magazine that only had stories and ads that you were interested in and pertained to you? That would be a magazine that everyone would want to read." This seems to indicate a conflict of interests; that Reason recognizes the peril, but can't help but consider the possibilities of catering to individual readers by exploiting personal data.

    Of course, this attempt at pandering generally fails in my experience. My being interested in 'Gardening' or 'Outdoor Life' is lightyears away from wanting a subscription to Better Homes and Gardens or Sports Illustrated, personalization or no. This is due to the critical distinction between essence and product.

    The phrase "Free Minds, Free Markets" also seems to me to be a contradiction in terms, although "Free Markets" leaves room for interpretation. I guess I'm reading this wrong, because to my mind, the notion of individuality resists the concept of demographic marketing, no matter how "free."

  • My Mailman (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kaboom13 ( 235759 ) <kaboom108@@@bellsouth...net> on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:36PM (#8772895)
    My mailman will still manage to deliver it to the neighbor's house by accident.

  • Reason (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Tlosk ( 761023 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:39PM (#8772910)
    I love the magazine personally, but I ended up stopping my subscription and just picking up a copy on the newstand whenever I happened to catch it.

    Ironically, for a magazine that runs so many good articles on privacy issues, they whored my address to anyone and everyone. I never got so much crap junkmail as after I started a subscription. And tenacious bulkmailers, sending thick wads every other month or so for years.

    While I can understand the reasoning behind the stunt, they might want to take a long hard look in the mirror first before preaching.

    • Re:Reason (Score:4, Funny)

      by Dun Malg ( 230075 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @06:26PM (#8773987) Homepage
      Ironically, for a magazine that runs so many good articles on privacy issues, they whored my address to anyone and everyone. I never got so much crap junkmail as after I started a subscription. And tenacious bulkmailers, sending thick wads every other month or so for years. While I can understand the reasoning behind the stunt, they might want to take a long hard look in the mirror first before preaching.

      Perhaps this is their way of illustrating just how bad an idea it is to give anyone your address...Teaching by demonstration, if you will...

  • Glad I'm not a subscriber... (Score:5, Funny)

    by rampant mac ( 561036 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:39PM (#8772911)
    My apartment's a shit hole.

    My magazine cover would feature the goatse guy.

  • A couple of the magazines that I subscribe to have ads in them (*gasp*) that are targeted at me. Somewhere on the ad there will by my name, and, for example, the address of the Napa Autoparts store closest to my house, or something similar depending on the ad. However it has never been something that is this well done. It is always low resolution sloppy text squirted reasonably close to where they meant it to be on the ad.

  • "narrowcasting" in print (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bbdd ( 733681 )
    from the article:

    "What if you received a magazine that only had stories and ads that you were interested in and pertained to you?" he asked. "That would be a magazine that everyone would want to read."

    wasn't this one of the promises of the web? is "narrowcasting" in print form really economically feasible?
  • Why is this article a News ??
    For example, this is what I did:
    (1) Find on Google. Look at first phonebook result [google.com]. Took 30 seconds.
    (2) Find address on terraserver [terraserver-usa.com] Took a minute.
    Now before you flame, all this is public information. It takes less than 2 minutes to obtain...so what's the big deal about the magazine's offer other than that they are printing it and mailing to you...

    Prior to this, mapquest was providing free aerial views as well...

  • Oh I can see it now... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Coltman ( 623132 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:46PM (#8772987)
    -wife- Hey hun we just got the customized Magazine in the mail. OH kewl it even has a picture of the whole neighborhood! What quality even!
    -looks closer- Hey hun is that you? What are doing with the neighbors wife? Why is she naked??

  • More scary (Score:5, Funny)

    by JohnGrahamCumming ( 684871 ) * <slashdotNO@SPAMjgc.org> on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:48PM (#8773001) Homepage Journal
    They've been printing my ADDRESS on the cover for months.

    John.
  • Really anyone with reasonable knowlegde could do this with a phonebook and and internet connection. Now when the magazine comes and says, "Bob Smith, This is your life..." then I'll put my tinfoil hat on.

  • This exists already (Score:3, Funny)

    by Innova ( 1669 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:51PM (#8773040) Homepage
    "What if you received a magazine that only had stories and ads that you were interested in and pertained to you?"

    It's called Maxim [maximonline.com].

  • Know what would be really interesting? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PsiPsiStar ( 95676 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @04:56PM (#8773081)
    I'd like to see the magazine use the Freedom of Information act and insert some of a person's file into each magazine (maybe a random person?). Of course, I don't think you could automate it, it would be expensive, and the feds would give you a hassle... but if you could...
  • ..Osama Bin Laden.

    Naw never work. I can't get that jackass Postal puke to stop putting my mail in the next door neighbor's box so how is going to get it to the correct cave.

  • Even scarier (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nns6561 ( 559085 )
    I think it would have scared people if they would have instead used a picture of the address the person first lived at. Just imagine getting a magazine with a picture and address that you hadn't lived at for years. That'd cause people to think more.

  • Reason: Free Minds, Free Markets (Score:3, Insightful)

    by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @05:04PM (#8773132) Journal
    Any opinion you like, as long as it's capitalist extremism.

  • Wouldn't it suck if (Score:4, Funny)

    by Lord Kano ( 13027 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @05:08PM (#8773188) Homepage Journal
    they took the picture of your house while your mistress was parked outside?

    LK

  • That's NOTHING, This Is WORSE.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by bfg9000 ( 726447 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @05:09PM (#8773196) Homepage Journal
    I just got my May copy of Playboy, and it had My NAME IN BOLD PRINT AND A PICTURE OF ME NAKED ON THE COVER!!!

    And that's not just my copy, that's *all of them*. I hear Hugh Hefner was pissed because I dissed him on Fark.

    The Lesson? Don't mess with guys who buy ink by the barrel and can photoshop a tattoo of Fabio onto your butt.

  • Personalized Cover Story to Boot! (Score:3, Funny)

    by f0rt0r ( 636600 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @05:37PM (#8773464)
    I can see it now, I picture of my weedy front lawn with "Mow Your Freakin' Law, John Doe" as the cover story. What is next? A picture of my car with words "Wash Me" add to the trunk by the Magazine editors!

  • So when I pick this up on the newstand.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Omega1045 ( 584264 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @05:50PM (#8773579)
    it will have my name and a sat picture of my house? What happens if someone picks up my copy first? That is a privacy concern!

  • this is actually the wave of the marketing future. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Richthofen80 ( 412488 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @06:46PM (#8774247) Homepage
    Its called DPOD . digital print on demand. Customize the marketing and sales to a person entirely ... not just a word mail merge... a photo merge, where the vacation photo you took on your cruise is sent back, superimposed on the larger, cooler cruise ship out this year. a few companies merge output from popular graphics design tools, like quark, with XML and other stuff, which get their feed from marketing databases.

    I work for a small firm who develops software that is sold to companies that do specific mail marketing. a lot of people are looking for this.

  • Just plain cool (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PsibrII ( 671768 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @06:59PM (#8774419) Journal
    I'm a pretty bad satt map junkie. I've built a collection from various web sources of old home towns, vacations spots, places I've been, etc.

    I don't really see the problem with it. About the only thing that's roughly close to being up to date is the landsat 7 IR maps, and those will give you a headache if you look at em too long.

    But for general viewing, I usually go though lostoutdoors.com or teraserver depending on what kind of map format I want. lostoutdoors has a pretty limited interface, but if you get your coordinates narrowed down from teraserver, you can get a nice big detailed map of the area, as well as the topo map. Usually you can get something within the last 5 years from airplane survey photos stitched together.

    Was fun looking at old places I'd been and seeing what had changed. Was disapointed that the hardware store in marshalltown iowa had not kept the writing on their roof so I could see it on there. Was primarily something used by the local pilots back in the day. Would have been really cool to read it off of satellite, web server airplane photos, or even landsatt(unlikely on that though as the resolution is iffy).

    Until you have cheap lifting vehicles for space, you can forget the enemy of the state nonsense. You'll get some interesting views, but the chance of it being more recent than a year ago if you live in the sticks is nil. It would simply take way way too many birds to get same day data on everyone, not to mention a lot of luck unless you were also in a very arid pollution free area. Being a several thousand feet about sea level helps too.

    Also this will be a great personal collectors item to subscribers. But I suspect in time it'll be like the national geographic holographic skull pic. A neat gimick, soon to be copied by everyone and old news really fast.

    I think the upside will be that interest will spike for a while, and people will want more up to date and higher rez photos, faster web servers for the data, etc.

    For me though, there is no downside, I got most of what I want for the moment, so if all the USGS servers choke for weeks, its no big deal.

  • Incorrect Mail Leads to Privacy Breakdown? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HeXetic ( 627740 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @08:37PM (#8775264) Homepage
    What happens if you're a subscriber but your copy has the house & name of someone else? Isn't that against some kind of privacy law for which NY Times could potentially be sued?

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