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BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS
New SI.com Gets More 'Illustrated' (1).jpg) all looks airier and less cluttered, that is part of the design principle and the competitive strategy here. “We wanted to create more daylight between us and our competition,” says Paul Fichtenbaum, managing editor. And so there is more white space and splashes of color throughout. Sections are more clearly delineated from one another, but most of all users will notice much larger image spaces throughout to show off the brand’s “Illustrated” half. “Users tell us they come to the site for photos, analysis and trends. We wanted to capitalize on what users tell us we do well.”The “SI Writers” get featured beneath the lead position with a drop-down menu that can surface any of the SI columnists from the front page. Photos, videos and the SI Vault of archives are all at or just below the fold. Fichtenbaum says that the key here is flexibility. The home page does not lock editorial or advertising into a narrow range of formats. The old home page allowed for 25 to 30 layout iterations but the current one can morph up to 600 ways. Even the video player is malleable. Clips can run inside the main feature unit at the top of the page or can be put anywhere else in the layout. The new build can accommodate more of the unique ad campaigns like recent Apple Mac spots that span across leaderboard, skyscraper and square unit positions. “I wanted to give the business side a better opportunity to sell ads. We can create high-impact ad units that don’t conflict with editorial. They can do their thing and we can do our thing,” he says. SI.com’s main competitor, of course, is ESPN.com, which also relaunched earlier this year with a heavy emphasis on video—both game and show clips. “It would be nice to have all the options ESPN has, but we don’t have a vertical network,” says Fichtenbaum. Although SI.com had record-breaking performance with its swimsuit videos and it continues to build out more streaming media shows, Fichtenbaum doesn’t think video needs to be the default medium. “It’s the power of the story. It doesn’t matter if it is a podcast, a photo gallery or video. It is how we articulate the story. People don’t stop coming to Peter King because he doesn’t speak on a video. We like to emphasize our words and pictures.” SI.com claims 20 million monthly uniques (per Quantcast data). Ketel One Vodka will be the site’s featured sponsor at launch. If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com COMMENTS
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