Notice anything different lately about the magazines to which you subscribe?
Look closer.Check out the cover.
Try to peel off the address label.
Chances are you can't, if you're holding a recent copy of Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Time or certain other magazines.
The latest printing technology allows magazines to print their address labels right on the magazine cover itself, in a rectangular white box that replaces the old pasted-on paper label.
No longer will the address label cover up part of a picture or headline. No longer will the label fall off in the mail and your magazine wind up in the dead-letter office.
On the other hand, you can't peel off the label when the magazine cover is a work of art.
For example, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is coming out, and having an address label permanently affixed to the cover is like putting a Universal Product Code symbol on a Monet.
"It's a new technology, ink-jet imaging, that we're moving toward," said Jack Widener, director of distribution for Newsweek.
The motive is money.
It costs more to print the ink-jet labels onto the cover, but the companies hope to offset the cost by using personalized advertising messages inside the magazines.
For example, if a company has a mail-in coupon inside Newsweek, the magazine can print the subscriber's name and address on the coupon.
"We did one for L.L. Bean so all you had to do is tear off the coupon and mail it in," said Widener. "You ink-jet the label at the same time you do the coupon. Paper labels don't allow you to do that."
The imaging also allows advertisers to aim for a certain demographic target within the magazine's subscription base.
Newsweek advertisers, for instance, can target the magazine's female readers and buy an ad that only runs in copies sent to women.
Eventually, magazines expect to be able to tailor several different editions to the tastes of individual readers. Want more national news? More entertainment coverage? More sports? They'll send you a version of the basic magazine that matches your preferences.
Technology marches forward, but some people aren't going to like this.
Many folks feel a pathological urge to peel off the address label to create a more pristine cover.
"Doctors who bring their magazines from home into the office don't particularly like having their home address sitting around in the waiting room," said a woman at Newsweek's printing plant. "That's been the main complaint."
News magazine covers depicting historic events may become collector's items, and the new technology may make them less attractive, but shouldn't hurt their value.
"Most of the old Life magazines we sell have labels on them," said Randy Scott of Denver Book Fair. "We don't want to risk damaging the cover by taking off the labels."
Besides, most magazines with collector value - National Geographic, Smithsonian - likely will continue to be shipped in a paper or plastic sleeve with no address label on the actual cover.