Kate Upton is gracing the cover of the 2012 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
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 are available on SI.com and YouTube. Videos of the week’s launch events are also livestreaming to the magazine’s Facebook Page.
Elsewhere, SI has teamed up with Gilt Groupe for a themed sale: think swimwear, surfboards and posters (already sold out). The sale isn’t for profit — 100% of purchase prices are going to benefit The Nature Conservancy — but rather a promotional exchange.
It’s also an opportunity for SI to test online consumers’ appetites for branded merchandise. A spokesperson for SI said that an ecommerce extension “is on the to-do list in the coming year or two” but that the publication is “still thinking deeply about what that means.”
