When I was in graduate school in 1978, one of the members of Monty Python Flying Circus was a guest lecturer at journalism school. He was there to talk about a parody paper he published called Not The New York Times. It was an exact replica of the real newspaper, but it was all fake news.



That summer, Pope Paul VI died and was succeed by Pope John Paul I, who died 33 days after being elected. This led the faux paper to write a fake news story saying the third Pope that month, "John Paul John Paul," died 18 minutes after he was elected. "Pope Dies Yet Again," read the headline, "Reign is Briefest Ever," said the subtext, which added, "Cardinals Return From Airport."



I am not sure whether the speaker was Graham Chapman or John Cleese. But I do remember clearly that he told us that the fake New York Times was a new business idea called custom publishing. "Someday, there will be a magazine called 'Fred,'" he said, "dedicated solely to people named Fred."



That line about Fred magazine has always stuck in my mind. As ridiculous as it sounded, the idea of personalized publishing tantalized me.



Thirty-two years later, I can tell you that Advisor Products is making that prediction a reality.



Client Portals from Advisor Products lets an advisor create a personal electronic newsletter for each individual client. You can profile each client as retiree, pre-retiree, or business owner, and you can choose from a list of topics that would interest each client from our list of 100 wealth management topics.



Those two settings determine which stories from Advisor Products' proprietary content library of hundreds of articles will appear on the client's personal web page. Those settings also filter the topics of wealth management articles we do not write but that we allow into the client's personal portal.



In addition, you can bring in RSS feeds about entertainment, sports, health, food, and myriad other topics from other websites.



Personalizing financial articles is only one small part of the Client Portal platform. It also integrates with many CRM, financial planning, and performance reporting applications and includes a personal vault for each client. To learn more, call us at 516 333-0066 ext. 223.