Following up on his column on ESPN.com a week ago, MarketWatch's Jon Friedman discusses SI.com and its uphill battle against ESPN.com this week.

Sports Illustrated.com's executives are counting on the prestige of their 52-year-old magazine to trump the pizzazz of chief rival, ESPN.com.

SI.com, a division of Time Inc. offers readers the same brand of excellent journalism that its big brother presents week after week. But on the Web, where gossip and entertainment mean a lot to impatient readers, quality journalism alone may not always be enough to attract big numbers of readers and thrill hard-to-please advertisers.