SteveC

Wallpaper magazine allowed subscribers to design there own front cover for the August Edition.

An edition is a target for advertises. Produce two versions of an edition and you fragment the target (and double the number of targets). You also increase editorial costs - more articles need to researched and written and more pages have to be laid out.

You'll also fragment your readership as one can't be sure that a fellow reader read the same article; as their personalised magazine may not have that article!

Wired must be a tough sell to advertises in the first place as it has a broad readership who don't fit within a simple demographic. BYTE magazine - a great magazine in its day - had a similar problem and couldn't compete against niche mags. BYTE coverage included chip design, coding & desktop publishing - advertisers choose magazines that specialised in each area and BYTE closed.

That doesn't mean advertising within magazines isn't due for a revolution; but I'd start by researching/understanding the ad buying market as well as the readership desires.