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Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue Comes To Your Mobile Phone

One side of the mobile business that no one likes to acknowledge or speak about openly is that adult content is a big moneymaker. To wit, Sports Illustrated has decided to jump into the game and is making a version of its famous swimsuit issue available on mobile phones. IT, watch out!

This is probably exactly the type of content that IT doesn't want you to access from your mobile phone. I mean, unless you're some sort of talent scout, what could be less work-related? Accessing this type of content from your corporate smartphone might not be recommended if you value your job, because you never know what controls IT has placed on your device. Appropriate or not, starting this summer, Viva Vision, a mobile entertainment company, will be offering the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit slideshow, an application featuring Sports Illustrated models wearing designer swimwear in exotic locales.

If you're wondering what a slideshow is, I saw a demonstration of Viva Vision's technology last month at Qualcomm's BREW conference. You can check it out on Viva's Web site. Essentially, it is what you'd expect: A slideshow of images that is available for purchase from your wireless network operator's deck. Viva makes a lot of different slideshows, which users can interact with, play/pause, zoom in/out, etc. You also can save favorite images to the gallery application on your phone. The slideshows work great. They are fast, smooth, and the images are high quality.

Now Viva will be offering not only this year's SI swimsuit issue, as it has access to much of SI's vast library of images. "Viva Vision's innovative slideshow platform is at the vanguard of the mobile industry and will provide a creative brand extension for SI Swimsuit, the most powerful franchise in publishing," said Stacey Vollman, VP/general manager, SI Digital, in a prepared statement.

According to Viva, the SI Swimsuit slideshow will be available in various wireless markets midsummer.

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