Mashable Goes Inside Sports Illustrated

Lauren Indvik, the Associate Editor of Marketing and Media for Mashable, recently spent some time around the Sports Illustrated offices, speaking to our editors, designers and operations teams about SI’s digital development strategy and workflow.  The result is a multi-part series on how Sports Illustrated is forging the model for app development in the media industry. 

In her first story (7/26/11), which looks closely at how SI is jumping into the emerging non-iOS tablet market, Indvik labels SI’s All Access strategy as “the model that other successful magazine publications will inevitably imitate,” noting the consistent quality and voice across all platforms and easy access to content for consumers.  SI’s efficiency in creating multiple weekly editions is called an “impressive feat,”  as is the “seamless” integration of workflow to produce four tablet issues each week. In the follow-up piece (7/31/11) Indvik says, “It became clear that Sports Illustrated has alighted upon the best model for a print magazine in the digital age, not only in terms of content and design (i.e. the product itself), but also in the way the publication has organized its staff and workflow to produce consistently top-tier products across multiple platforms.”

Indvik spoke to a large cross section of SI’s team who are involved in publishing four editions each week.   Some of their quotes are after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »