Vanity research: As a subscriber to Vanity Fair (which I’m not, but I can’t unsubscribe to the e-mail they send because the unsubscribe must come from the e-mail account to which they send the spam and, well, it’s not worth explaining), I just got spammed with an offer to join their “Preferred Subscriber NetworkTM” Below you will find the friendly invitation in which the magazine’s publisher sends me a personal (Dear Subscriber) e-mail explaining how they like to maintain an open dialogue with their subscirbers. I clicked to the survey and discovered 19 pages (no lie) of questions about every consumer purchase and travel decision I’ve made in my life. I’m sorry. I can’t picture the person who would share this type of personal information with Vanity Fair, even for the chance at “up to” a $3,000 American Express gift certificate.

Dear Vantiy Fair Subscriber,

Here at Vanity Fair we try to maintain an open dialogue with our subscribers - not only about what you read and like, but also about what you buy, do and want to make your life easier and more comfortable.

That’s why we’re inviting you to join our Preferred Subscriber NetworkTM a select group of loyal subscribers to whom we can turn first for a valued opinion about products you see on your pages or for a first look when there is something sensational looming in the horizon.

As a loyal subscriber, you’re one of our first invites. And the first step to joining with us is to simply complete the questionnaire at our website by October 21, 2003. As a thank you for your input, you’ll be automatically entered into our sweepstakes and be eligible to win up to a $3,000 American Express gift certificate! And then enjoy all of the benefits to follow soon.

Simply click on the link below or cut and paste it into your URL window.

http://email.condenet.com/cgi-bin5/DM/y/hZkk0FgQtu0DjJ0Bbbo0Ax&idx=Q3574Y&rk=VBS3BH

Thank you. And welcome.

Sincerely,

Louis Cona
Publisher

I doubt the above link will stay live for long, but if you get the chance to check it out, you should do so. If for no other reason, to see what type of intimate personal information some people seem willing to share with their close friends at Conde Nast.

Forward this: According to the WP, at least three folks at Legg-Mason paid $700 a year for a subscription to a daily investment newsletter. I guess that made them think it was okay to forward it to over a thousand other employees…everyday…for over a decade. The bill just arrived for those extra subscriptions (via a federal court jury) and it looks like $20 million will even things up. No word yet regarding any subscription incentive premiums Legg-Mason may receive - 10K clock radios, perhaps? All jokes aside, you’ve got to ask yourself, “what were these jokers thinking?”

Lessons from rexblog: As hard as it is to believe, the end of Radar Magazine may be at hand, according to WWD.com. Then again, it may not be that hard to believe if you read the rexblog in April and later in April. And July. And a couple days later in July. Indeed, since first mentioning the launch (before we had coined the term “vaporzine“) of Radar in May, 2002, we’ve used Radar as a means to educate future generations of would-be magazine start ups who google the term “how to start a magazine” and “magazine start up rules” and other such hopeful keywords to follow this rexblog rule: Never confuse hype with success. And never, never, never confuse (see quote, paragraph 5) a feature story by David Carr about your independent magazine with success.

Outage: I’m a big fan of the blogrolling.com service that enables me to easily manage the links on the left of each page of this blog. However, if they have server problems, which apparently they have had this morning, it makes it hard to access this page.

Blog stats: I’m on record about what I think of statistics and how reporters just can’t help selectively applying them to analysis of topics about which they know. So it should come with little surprise what I think (not much) of the blog stats from Perseus being volleyed around today. That said, however, I do agree 100% with the following:

The average blogger is a teen-age girl who updates her friends and classmates on her life, with words and spellings not quite as informal as instant messaging, Perseus said. Updates are done twice a month, Perseus said.

I agree, I can admit now, because months ago I turned over the operation of the rexblog to several teenage girls who each make two posts a month.