Immitation, I am told, is the most sincere form of flattery, so the story going around that Maxim have created the first advert that can be viewed from space could be a rather swift homage to my iPod gag… or they were planning this for a long time and I inadvertently pulled the rug from under their feet. Oops.

The only magazine big enough to be seen from space – and only in Vegas!

That’s beautiful… only in Vegas… and maybe Paddington, West Australia.

Seen from Outer Space!

Here’s what Maxim has to say on the subject:

Constructed near Vegas out of vinyl mesh to celebrate our 100th issue, this colossal babe can be seen from outer space using Google Earth.

This is utter nonsense, but brilliant marketing.

Invisible from space.

When I was composing the backstory for the iPod gag, one thing I was very careful of was to give it enough factual basis that the silly bits could be believed, so I checked about the height where space officially begins, and I checked that the tailings dam was visible from that height in Google Earth, without magnification.

The Maxim advert which covers 697 square metres is a tiddler in comparison to “the iPod” which is more than 1000 times bigger, covering 893240 square metres.

If the advert exists (and I’m assuming it does) it has an absolute zero chance of being spotted by an orbiting astronaut taking a walk after lunch. As commercial ventures/hoaxes go, however, it’s a total success, because it’s got press coverage, and it’s got web coverage.

The journalists at C|Net, Yahoo etc. may be feeling a little used right now over the whole “from space” thing. This however, is the world of entertainment, where facts don’t matter and a good story is the only thing of importance.

So what is this Maxim thing really?

If you use Google Maps to go to the spot where the magazine is supposed to be you find a big plain empty patch of ground.

To create this image I used this bookmark from Google Earth to show the spot where the magazine is supposed to be – look for the remarkably small white rectangle just above right of centre.

No evidence?

There are no images currently in Google Earth that show the existence of a giant magazine cover. You can’t see it without an overlay.

The lack of evidence from a trusted third party (in this case Google) is what has prompted many to cry hoax. This is also the reason why the iPod gag took off – it was visible in Google Earth and Google Maps without any overlays, people believed they could verify its existence, so they believed the story.

Maxim have had to create an overlay that you can load, which adds the image of the magazine onto the desert, and for good measure, it adds a bit of desert too. This is probably so you don’t wonder why the nearby desert is in such low resolution when looking at the magazine in relatively high resolution. The downside of this is that although it looks nice, people don’t trust it.

Ultimately, Size Does Matter

So did they really create it? It’s feasible. It’s not particularly big, so it could be done. Remember this is 1000 times smaller than the iPod; but why bother when photo manipulation can do it so effectively?

One theory (which I’m enamoured with) is that we are seeing a preview of higher resolution data that has not yet made it into Google Earth; in which case Maxim have spent a lot of money on an advert that seems to have arrived too late. Hence the need for the overlay. Supporting this theory is the fact that this image can be downloaded from earth.google.com.

If that’s not the case, then it’s a pure unadulterated and massively successful hoax.

One not so giant leap for advertising

If the tailings dam really were an advert, then it really would be visible from space, but whatever the full story is behind the Maxim magazine cover, it’s not visible from space (as is claimed on the cover itself), because it’s just way too small, which is a shame.

In the centre you’ll see that little white rectangle again. That’s the size of the magazine.

You can try taking Google Earth to the edge of space and looking for it (62 Miles/100Km high), but you won’t see it. In fact, to make it simpler, I’ve shifted the maxim overlay to Australia so you can see one within the other. The size remains the same, only the magazine’s positioning has been transposed (which is why it appears upside-down). The height is set at 62 miles up to get you started, then you can zoom in.

And the winner is…

Google, obviously.

It’s another wonderful example of Google Earth becoming the advertisers dream, which, oddly enough I sort of I predicted back in October 2004 when I wrote:

Virtual billboards here we come.

Ah well.

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