Despite the calendar indicating it’s still the depths of winter, Sports Illustrated has it’s annual respite for all of us. The annual Swimsuit Issue launched today on SI.com. 2005 is the first year since 1997 that I haven’t worked on the production of the online version of the American icon, but it’s great to see the issue without getting sick of all the photos weeks in advance of the public release. The magazine blessed the release of close to double the number of photos in past years, although some are for magazine subscribers only. But there are tons of free video clips (it was pay-only in past years), and a smattering of VR photography by my friend Bruce Kaufman. And my friend Chris Gibbons created some very slick Flash features for the Rate-a-Photo section. Another new feature this year is a digital edition of the magazine available for download for $4.99. The application from company OliveSoftware uses their ‘ActivePaper’ technology, basically serving the assets to registered users via Flash. An interesting model, so to speak. Anyway, start clicking!
Tag Archives: Sports
Woe and 28
My hometown of Savannah, GA is in the news today, but not for a terribly positive reason. Savannah State University, one of the country’s historically African-American colleges, achieved the dubious honor of going 0-28 this season with a loss to Florida A&M 49-44 on Monday night. In 50 years, only one other Division 1-A team has lost every game. Head coach Edward Daniels’ explained to the Savannah Morning News that his former coach Al McGuire taught him to ‘keep a sense of humor…You can’t let things get you down so far that you’re a Grim Reaper-type guy.’ Well, maybe going 0-28 gives you reason to be just a little bit down…Read coverage at SI.com here, and at the Savannah Morning News site here.
Photograph by Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News
Dynasty
So we didn’t have Massachusetts’ native son win the highest office in the land. As a consolation prize, the Red Sox and now the Patriots claimed the highest honors in their respective sports. I don’t expect the Celtics to join the club this year, and of course, the Bruins are playing golf instead of hockey this year. But kudos to the Patriots for their third Super Bowl championship in four years.
Opting out of the Swimsuit Issue
The New York Times Richard Sandomir reports today (free registration required) that subscribers to Sports Illustrated can call a toll-free number to skip the annual Swimsuit issue and instead extend their subscription by one issue. SI management is quoted as saying that this has always been the policy – but the mag decided this year to post a message in their pages stating this explicitly. So far, 25,829 have opted out. That’s 0.8% of the magazine’s stated 3.2 million subscribers. When the policy wasn’t publicized last year, a total of 21,065 skipped the issue.