The promise

Personalization. It's what the web has always promised. Back in the stone age, when there was only the little Mac and the big DOS IBM, we began to think about personalizing our experience, even if it was only a chat group . . . or user group as we called ourselves then.

And every year the reality gets bigger. Now we’ve got Faebook and Twitter and Stumbleupon and you name it. We even have a term for that kind of personalization: social media.

But personalization has many new forms.

Now you can personalize your newspaper. There are two German companies that mix and match newspaper pages. Their software could be applied to magazines and books.

So imagine a professor choosing excerpts from multiple books to make his own creation. And his students picking their individual covers.

You can personalize your advertising with PrecisionAds. Let’s say you are a jeweler and want to reach only those people within 5 miles of your storefront who are over 50 and make more than $100,000 a year. Easy with PrecisionAds.

You can personalize your mobile phone. Let’s say you see an article in a newspaper or magazine and you want to read that story later. If it has the Primiro logo you can text the story to your phone.

You can personalize your website. ICurrent.com asks you your preferences to begin with and then watches you use the site to determine what future stories to give you.

You can personalize what comes out of your home printer, if it’s an internet ready Hewlett Packard device. Just touch the screen and print your Fandango tickets or your Mapquest directions.

In fact, you can personalize any printing. CGX Publishing, a global company, is testing all the new, web-fed variable data printers to get the best one to be able to personalize books and magazines and newspapers and brochures and event programs.

Imagine if you showed up at the theater and the program had your name and the location of your seat on the cover.

Or you ordered your tickets for a blacktie fundraiser online and the program you get when you arrived has your name, the sponsor of the table where you are sitting and the amount of your donation. And the names of the other people at the table – and what they do.

Personalization. You can’t get enough.