Friday, February 1, 2013

How does one profile an enigma? ESPN takes a shot at profiling Lionel Messi

What do you do when your subject is reticent, inarticulate, and inaccessible? You go to places where he spent his formative years, talk to others who are more willing, and come up with some wild conjectures on what it is that drives someone who may lay claim to be the greatest football player of all time. The result is a portrait that feels somewhat incomplete and hollow - but the effort is laudable.

If nothing else, its finally great seeing content on the web break away from the jaded magazine layout and become more dynamic. Not quite as sophisticated as Snowfall by NYTimes, yet a notable step forward. This is how to fight off the Safari reader feature that threatens to strip away anything that is not purely textual content.