The content is produced by a large group of both in-house and external staff. MTV had a need to overhaul this platform that was pivotal to its online business. The goal was to migrate the sites and content from the old content management system onto a new platform, and to build a strong foundation for further development.
1. Supports content production and editorial workflow.
2. Efficient multi-channel publishing that allows easy inclusion of new publishing channels.
3. Easy integration of video content from internal and external sources, and capability to combine it with other types of content.
4. Easy and flexible utilization of external sources of content.
5. Capability to publish content, such as news applications, to external users.
6. Allows simpler and more efficient building of websites.
7. Supports an advertising-based revenue model
With massive amounts of content being produced 24/7 every day of the year, ease of use is one of the key requirements for the tools.
MTV had chosen Coremedia as the new web content management (WCM) tool, and it was the responsibility of Loihde and Nitor Creations, with the help this tool, to implement a solution that would meet the business requirements.
The project set out to build a next generation content management platform that would streamline website content production and distribution. The project covered the gathering of requirements, describing the user roles and workflows, and the design and implementation of the systems architecture and the infrastructure that supports it. Also, the project planned and executed the migration of content from the old system to the new one, one content entity at a time.
The first section (studio55.fi) and the new technical platform were launched in August 2013. The next section (mtv.fi/uutiset) went live November 4th, 2013, as part of MTV’s brand revamp of a historic magnitude.
The content management platform implemented in this project integrates into MTV’s other systems that are used for managing videos and live streams, for example. Also, the system has been integrated into the existing mobile services and other back-end systems that support the site.
Loihde and Nitor Creations were responsible for delivering the solution. In its work, the project team followed the Pragmatic Agile® software development methodology, and the CAPO model* that supports it.
The solution was built on the JavaEE technologies. The content management functionalities were in turn built on Coremedia CMS 7. Spring Framework was the main software framework, while other commonly used technologies included HTML/HTML5, CSS/CSS3, JavaScript and JSP. A HAML/SASS -based prototype was utilized in the implementation, which allowed describing the UI requirements directly in the HTML language used in the implementation, thus reducing the time consumed in proceeding from requirements to the final implementation.
The first phase of the project, which launched the studio55.fi service and the new technical platform, was finished within schedule and budget in August 2013. The next milestone was to migrate the news service onto the new platform. Due to MTV’s brand revamp, the schedule was fixed. Nevertheless, both budget and schedule were adhered to in this phase, too.
Deploying the new platform went smoothly, with a few minor adjustments. Before going live, the content providers of the news service received training on the new tool. Owing to the training as well as the optimized processes and tools, end-users have needed very little support since the deployment.
Further development of the platform and the online services is now much faster and easier than before. Building the sites is based on reusable and configurable components, allowing the adjustment of a page layout entirely without coding.
*) The CAPO® model by Loihde, and the Pragmatic Agile® by Nitor Creations are mutually compatible agile development methodologies that are based on best practices.