I downloaded this week's issue of Sports Illustrated on the iPad app, just to give it a whirl. Hard to imagine I will do this regularly, since I had to pony up $4.99 for something I am already subscribing to in its traditional format. But it is pretty cool to flip through the electronic edition to see photo galleries (with some pretty stunning photography, which has always been one of this magazine's hallmarks). Not much here in the way of video stuff, though.
They've really got to figure out a better business model. I'd love for subscribers to have access to the digital mag the way The Economist and The New Yorker give print subscribers full access to their Web-based digital content. I could see charging us a nominal fee to read iPad versions of what we get in the mail. But five bucks per issue is not going to generate much traffic.
