by Sports Illustrated‘s 49th annual Swimsuit edition isn’t just hitting physical newsstands Tuesday — it’s also making its way onto more digital platforms than ever before. In addition to the iPad, the issue is also available on the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Nook Color, Kindle Fire, Motorola Xoom and Android smartphones for $6.99. A redesigned iPhone edition, which strips the magazine to the issue’s photographic and rich media content, has also been released. Chris Hercik, creative director of the Sports Illustrated Group, made a few tweaks to the tablet edition of this year’s Swimsuit. Horizontal and vertical layouts now align perfectly, making it easier for readers to switch between modes. The issue is also more interactive, with 65 streaming videos, scrollable text and galleries, and 360-degree rotating models. (Unfortunately for many readers, zooming capabilities are severely limited.) About a third of the video content is exclusive to the tablet edition. Still more Read More

Maurice Edelson, EVP and a member of Time Inc.'s interim management committee, sees the explosion of tablet popularity as a opportunity for his company. "In the coming year, there will clearly be many more consumers using tablets, accelerating demand for content and driving advertiser interest. We are putting ourselves in a great position to take advantage of these opportunities." Print subscribers will have the option to add digital subscriptions at no cost. All the publications will be available on the iPad, Android tablets, and the HP Touchpad. A Time spokesperson told me that the company is following other publishers like Amazon and the Wall Street Journal and avoiding the high toll at the Apple app store. Other publishers like Hearst are selling magazines through the app store. Time says its digital magazines and related apps have been downloaded more than 11 million times. Read More

Among magazines, Sports Illustrated has emerged as a leader in the digital age. In addition to its print edition, the title has produced a tablet edition for the iPad every week since it debuted last June and more recently added to its roster weekly editions for Android and webOS tablets. Sports Illustrated also produces daily content for SI.com, highlights 10 sports photos every day on its Chrome web app, and offers more content on special cross-channel packages, including Swimsuit. The numbers support the digital push. Sports Illustrated‘s digital revenue was up 22% between 2009 and 2010, and it is on track for double-digit growth again this year, says Scott Novak, VP of communications at Sports Illustrated Group. Curious to know how and why the team could keep this pace, we visited editors, producers and operations managers as they put together a special double issue over a seven-day period. It became clear Read More

The magazine industry’s current interest and investment in tablets beyond the iPad can be described as tentative at best. It’s not terribly surprising. Even by the most conservative of estimates, the iPad will make up the lion’s share of worldwide tablet sales for the next three to four years. Nearly seven of every ten tablets in consumers’ hands at year’s end will be iPads, Gartner forecasts. By comparison, Gartner estimates that Android will own 19.9% of the tablet market by the end of 2011, followed by QNX (5.6%, used by the BlackBerry PlayBook), webOS (4.0%, used by the HP TouchPad) and MeeGo (1.1%). Given early indications that the Android-based Motorola Xoom and Galaxy Tab are not selling well, that RIM has shipped — not sold — a mere 500,000 BlackBerry PlayBooks, and that HP’s webOS TouchPad tablet has garnered only lukewarm reviews, those numbers even strike us as a little ambitious. Read More

by At a press event in New York City Friday, Sports Illustrated and parent company Time Inc. announced a new subscription plan that spans the web, and several major mobile and tablet devices — excluding, notably, the iPhone and the iPad. To subscribe, Sports Illustrated readers will need to elect one of two subscription options at si.com/magazine (see below), and then download the apps through the Android Marketplace. Google will take an undisclosed cut of sales, Time EVP and Chief Digital Offer Randall Rothenberg said. The subscription options are as follows: Current print subscribers will have free access to all digital properties through the end of their current plan. Those who prefer to read Sports Illustrated on their iPhones or iPads can continue to purchase and download single issues of the magazine through the apps [iTunes link] designated for each device. Time Inc. executives believe digital magazines have not yet reached Read More

If you're a regular reader of the Sports Illustrated (SI) publication for the iPad, you may have noticed something unusual / different in the latest issue. The SI iPad edition is now only viewable in landscape mode, no longer supporting portrait mode as it did in previous issues. If you hold your iPad in landscape mode and then turn it to portrait mode the message, "This page is intended to be viewed in landscape mode. (There's nothing wrong with your iPad -- just turn it horizontally.)" appears. Guest editor of the SI iPad edition, Josh Quittner (Time Magazine), comments on this change in his personal blog. Quittner says that he believes the optimal viewing experience for photo-driven magazines, like SI, is in landscape mode. He also adds that by not editing in two formats (landscape and portrait) some innovative new features have been introduced, like "Super Loooooong View" - bringing a Read More

Remember this video demonstrating Time, Inc.'s vision for a tablet-based version of Sports Illustrated (SI)? It preceded the iPad's release and got many fans excited for the future. The real thing isn't quite so impressive, but the demo demonstrates the publisher's enthusiasm for the emerging platform. Unfortunately, that enthusiasm is turning into frustration. All Things Digital is reporting on Time's trouble with getting a mutually-agreed upon subscription model past Apple. Writing for All things D, Peter Kafka notes that Time wanted to launch a subscription-based version of SI on the App Store, only to have it rejected by Apple. Time would have users download the app from the store and then pay them directly for future issues. Apple didn't like the idea, and Time was forced to sell single copies of the magazine. Right now when you launch the app, you're presented with a number of issues that can be bought, Read More

So far, most magazine publishers have tried hard to make their iPad editions a faithful translation of their paper-and-ink copies: What you pay for at the newsstand is the same thing you get from Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes store, with some added bells and whistles. But they don’t have to be that way. Case in point: The newest edition of Sports Illustrated. Print readers get a cover featuring LeBron James and his new teammates. But anyone who buys the iPad version will see a cover story on Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who died this week. News of Steinbrenner’s death broke early Tuesday morning, a half-day after Sports Illustrated’s conventional issue had gone to the printers. After a relatively quick conversation, says editor Terry McDonell, the magazine staff decided to give the iPad edition a new cover, along with a story by Tom Verducci. “We all sort of looked at other, and said, Read More

...เมื่อกี้ Link ผิด ต้องอันนี้ http://tinyurl.com/2bcgudw (ระยะหลังกด Copy ที... Read More

...Illustrated for the iPad is up on the iTunes store: http://tinyurl.com/2bcgudw... Read More

...Illustrated app for iPad now available... http://bit.ly/arcghb... Read More

Sports Illustrated’s iPad app, which the company first started showing off in concept form last winter, is now in the iTunes store. No point in going into detail about it when you can see it for yourself. But it’s basically what editor Terry McDonell promised last fall and what the magazine’s peers are also delivering on Apple’s (AAPL) platform: All of the weekly magazine is there, plus some bells and whistles, like additional photos, an extra story and some videos. (The ads, though, are not the same as those in the magazine, which is different from rival Condé Nast’s strategy.) In this case, the app it also looks and functions quite a bit like Time magazine’s iPad app, with good reason: Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc. unit is using the same outside collaborators, The Wonder Factory and WoodWing Software, for all its magazine apps. So if you liked the Time app, Read More