Mine the gap

Today a new magazine arrived in my mailbox: Mine, the bespoke magazine from Time Inc.

I talked about this before, but now I have a copy, it bears a return visit.

The magazine arrives with a bellyband advertising the new Lexus 2010 RX, the sole advertiser of this venture. On the front is the tagline “My magazine > My way” and a strangely blurred photo of the spines of the 8 magazine options, 5 of which make up your magazine.

First report is that it is very thin – 36 pages in all, though it is of course an experimental free sample. The format is the same height and a tiny bit wider than Time (so quite a bit smaller than Real Simple, if memory serves).

Each magazine gets six pages, including a single page blank opener – which amounts to two or three articles, the opening one being a double spread.

The designs show no obvious signs of being overly squeezed to fit the format; however, there is a colour border (a slightly muddy brown) around each piece, presumably to give both consistency to the mag and more flexibility to the trim, while allowing folios (which don’t carry page numbers, only the name of the magazine excerpted from) to be consistent as well. Unfortunately, it’s not an inspiring frame for the pieces, and some of the larger images suffer from their proximity to this rather dull border.

Where Mine really works is in the variety of articles and subjects that it offers. What other magazine has a guide to changing a tyre, to playing golf like Tiger, an interview with a prominent Tibetan leader, eight healthy juices and a piece about soccer? Actually, now I think about it, it could just be a decent issue of GQ, without the fashion shoots. But you get the idea. If I’d had InStyle in the mix, it might have been a bit more varied – although I’m fairly sure I actually asked for that, see below.

The colours and printing quality are surprisingly good for print-on-demand, though the blacks on some of the type look to the naked eye as if they might have spread a tiny bit. They seem just that bit too bold, especially when one of the Time articles is put next to the real Time magazine.

These are quibbles. Where the whole thing falls down, however, is in its inevitable lack of consistency in voice; it’s as if a magazine had only section editors, and no overall editor. This means it does read more like browsing online, jumping from site to site, but this is the worst of lessons to learn from the internet. Consistency of vision and image in a single object is one of print’s strongest reasons to exist; like this, it’s more like a portable, non-electronic internet with all the best bits missing.

It’s also very odd to see Time‘s logo without its iconic red border – which leads me to another problem with Mine: the articles all feel quite anonymous. By picking random excerpts, you don’t get a strong enough image of each brand involved, so if the aim is to pick up more subscribers via this sample, it doesn’t real work as well as it should.

A brief word about the print-on-demand car ads. They’re cute, as they include my name and mentions of my hometown in their copy. Sadly, it mostly comes across as being like a rock star giving a random shout out to where they happen to be playing today – a bit too “insert name here” and not enough bespoke usefulness. It’s always good to see an attempt at innovation using POD, but more work – and thought – is needed if the effort will actually be worthwhile. How about great drives near my house? Or even the details of my closest Lexus dealer?

Finally, I’m not entirely sure I actually received what I asked for (I didn’t get an email with my choices confirmed on anywhere, and there was no login procedure, but I’m 90% certain I didn’t ask for Time). A moot point for now, but a slightly irritating one, if true.

Overall, this is an experiment, a kind of a sampler that I got to compile (well, kind of) and having received the first edition, I have to confess that I actually rather like it despite all its flaws. It’s a bit like The Week but with the original designs intact, and therefore a much more satisfying read. I’ve actually spent a fair amount of time enjoying the articles, and being glad of the lack of ads in between.

The technology to do this has existed for a while. In fact, I’d say that the most remarkable thing about Mine is that it’s Time Inc doing it, and not, say, a digital publisher teaming up with MagCloud (which will probably come when advertising returns from its hibernation holes).

I really hope they’ll push the possibilities of POD a little further in issue two, and try to make it more of a multi-branded piece, which would make a lot more sense. If they don’t, I can’t promise to be as forgiving when I review Mine issue two. Which, if they don’t call Mine Too, is getting a black mark for starters.

Update: Oh good. I thought I was going a bit crazy there for a moment.

Dear Andrew,
Thank you for subscribing to mine magazine. We want to let you know that a computer error may have affected the first issue you received this week. It’s possible that this issue did not contain the combination of magazine content you selected. Please know that the problem has been resolved, and that each of your subsequent issues will reflect the exact content you originally requested.

Wayne Powers
President, Time Inc. Media Group