TIME MARCHES ON, MAYBE - AT 8:49 A.M. ET:  From AFP:

US news weekly Time, which like other publications has been looking for ways to reinvent itself in print and on the Web, is allowing readers to put together their own personalized magazine.

The experiment, called "Mine," allows readers to create a print or Web version of a magazine with content drawn from titles owned by Time and its partner in the venture, American Express Publishing.

The titles are Time, Sports Illustrated, Food & Wine, Real Simple, Money, InStyle, Golf, and Travel + Leisure.

Readers are being encouraged to log on to timeinc.com/mine to choose content from five of the eight titles to create their own free 36-page "customized" magazine, which can be received either in print or online.

Time said 231,000 print and online copies of each issue will be available and readers can receive a new issue of "Mine" magazine every two weeks for 10 weeks.

COMMENT:  Interesting experiment, and we'll follow it.  Of course, Time, like Newsweek, seems to be fading away.  In their traditional formats these magazines are no longer needed, and both committed the classic blunder of injecting too much bias into their reporting. 

Also, a pet peeve:  I wish organizations would stop using words like "mine" or "my" in the names of their products.  It's an epidemic.  I get the sense that, pretty soon, hospitals will have "My emergency room" and "My dialysis center."  Even Apple Computer has fallen victim.  I subscribe to one of their services and it's called "My..."  I forget.  The "my" turned me off.  Enough already.

March 20, 2009