Some early-era content from ESPNTheMag.Com

This is some of the content we placed online shortly after our February 2008 launch.

Getty Images

Our site debuted less than 12 hours after this happened.

As we announced here, ESPNTheMag.Com will be fully merging with ESPN Insider next week (beginning 06-08-09) to create a content supergroup. This is a brief reflection on the early days of ESPNTheMag.Com.

If you're young (our demo) and don't understand why Barbra Streisand is as big a deal as she is, watch this video. Then, sense of nostalgia fully empowered, read this post.

The first day ESPN The Magazine posted digital content was February 4, 2008, also known as the day after this. (There was an earlier ESPN The Magazine digital effort, in the initial part of this decade.)

Our first post ever can be found here. It was written by Paul Kix, who has been one of our most consistent digital contributors.

We used to open the day with a lil' thing called "Your 8 AM," an example of which can be found here. (Classic pic on that one.)

Early on, we had a conceit called "Six Clicks," attempting to link concepts to each other via Wikipedia and other search methods. Here's an example of one.

We also ran with the "Open Letter" conceit; a bunch of those are archived here. There was one in particular that drew a bunch of attention: an open letter to the city of Detroit.

We had a concept called "Dream Date." It's fairly self-explanatory. Check this example out. When we posted that, a rando kid in our office walked up to us guffawing. Not sure why.

Here's an example of another jam we used to do, called (rather simply) "Fake Resume."

This, dear reader, is "a charticle."

And finally, for a while we did a concept called "Sporting Equivalency," linking pop culture figures to athletes. Here's a full archive of 'em. Hardcore sports fans will think it's dumb, but that's why you should go to Insider. They've got that covered. A kid at a bar in West Hartford, CT once told us "I really enjoy Sporting Equivalency," and that needs to be noted.

Tomorrow's Recap: ESPN The Magazine video over the past 17 months

Print Article . Email Article. Subscribe to The Magazine