SI's McDonell on Building a Great Magazine App: "Build It and They Will Come"

Sports Illustrated unveiled a new video of its tablet demonstration at yesterday's Google I/O conference in San Francisco. Managing Editor Terry McDonell made the presentation and was the narrator of the riveting 3-minute-long video featuring how content would be displayed using HTML5, which is a technology that might change online video. The demonstration spotlighted stories with embedded video (like a piece on a boxer). "The idea is simple," said McDonell, "combine the best of the web with the best of the magazine." He even poked fun at himself when he showed last week's issue with a prominent Cleveland Cavalier on the cover. "Not my best call putting Shaq on the cover," he quipped. McDonell concluded the video saying, "This prototypee is meant to illustrated ways in which journalism can flourish and how business models can be transformed...If you build it, they will come." oogle I/O conference Wednesday pledging their devotion to HTML5, and support for the royalty-free VP8 codec and WebM format available free to anyone. The video format, billed as a technology that will revolutionize online video, got a nod from the magazine Sports Illustrated. But it's getting nods from advertising and marketing agencies, too. HTML5 gives advertisers multiplatform support. The campaign will play back on an iPad, iPhone, Android phone, desktop and Internet-enabled televisions. It also enables developers to create online games. Agencies won't need to develop 19 formats to support just as many campaigns. If the format takes off and is widely adopted, it will enable campaigns to easily work across devices. Some devices do not support Flash or Silverlight today. Apple, however, does support a version of the new codec called H264. Today, HTML5 on YouTube is a TestTube experiment. It does not support ads at this time. What's in it for publishers? Evidently, support for paid-content subscription models online. Terry McDonell, editor at Sports Illustrated, demonstrated a magazine application in development that featured video running within a frame of text. It looks similar t