Our work with Rolling Stone and Bondi Digital Publishing is just one of the many examples of how we stay on the leading edge of technology to create new revenue streams for clients, in this case magazine publishers. AIS built a digital distribution platform to usher print publications like Rolling Stone into the digital age – by providing them with a turnkey solution to present their print magazine archives online, for viewing on high resolution-connected devices of all shapes and sizes. Unlike other digital versions of magazines on the market, the Bondi platform allows publishers to monetize their own unique brand through the years, whether it’s Rolling Stone, starting from 1967 with more than 1,000 issues, or Vogue, starting as far back as 1898. Bondi expects to approach the landmark of two million pages archived very soon. With the tools provided in the platform, publishers can cull their own history for relevant articles and images to enhance other digital offerings and to keep pace with the ever-changing news cycle in whatever industry they serve.
Background
Rolling Stone is one of America’s premier magazines, published every two weeks, with a keen focus on music, politics and pop culture. Founded in 1967, it has been best-known for its musical coverage, but in recent years it has broadened its scope to include critically-acclaimed coverage of financial and banking issues. With the addition of these features, the magazine has seen its circulation increase and its reporters invited as experts on noteworthy network television programs
The Challenge
AIS needed to address multiple technical areas to provide the most viable solution for Rolling Stone and other archives. These areas included speed, scale, security, continuous delivery and high-definition presentation. Rolling Stone’s existing solution (‘print to digital’) only supported 100 issues, and AIS was challenged to multiply the output tenfold while reducing management costs and allowing Rolling Stone the freedom to design their interface in a way that matched and enhanced their other digital presences.
While the deployment model for Rolling Stone required an on-premises solution, AIS was tasked with morphing the product into a system that could be deployed onto Microsoft Azure-hosted services (and later Azure Web Sites). AIS is a leading solution provider in the Azure space and our work with Bondi proves it. The archive solution can scale up or down instantly based on demand and traffic, with multiple layers of caching and data storage, including SQL Azure and Azure Blob Storage. Clients can still opt for a local solution or they can reduce their infrastructure and management costs by choosing a 100% Azure-based system. The output remains primarily HTML5-based to ensure compatibility across the widest range of devices and computers. The use of Azure and other Microsoft technologies allows AIS to provide a platform that publishers of all sizes can use to get started in a cost-effective and expedient manner.
Solution
AIS implemented a multi-tier solution in the creation of the Bondi Archive Platform. Here’s how the process works: the physical magazine issues are first sent to a scanning and OCR vendor. The vendor uses AIS conversion tools to create digital versions that are web-optimized and fully indexed for search. The conversion tool deploys the new issue assets to the cloud and then the publisher and other QA personnel review it to ensure it meets various quality criteria. When the QA process is complete, the issue goes live and all assets become immediately available to subscribers.
The platform built by AIS consists of a flexible, scalable website architecture using HTML5, JavaScript, ASP.NET MVC and SQL Azure. The system allows viewers to see exact replicas of the original print issues, something not offered by any other platform. Users can navigate using mouse, keyboard or touch and can zoom in or conduct complex searches. Bookmarking inside the archive is available as is print, based on each publisher’s preference.
On the administrative side, AIS developed an admin site that provides content editing, search-indexing and subscription management. The platform can be integrated with each client’s authentication and subscription management engines or function as a standalone solution.
Results
The new archive platform has allowed Rolling Stone to join the online revolution and bring their print content online in its original format and context, thereby retaining copyrights. By serving the content directly from their own websites or from the cloud, publishers avoid content restrictions and fees imposed by third-party aggregation platforms and app stores. The project and platform has been an unequivocal success. Rolling Stone chose to enhance its print subscriptions by offering the full digital archive at no extra charge. By tightly integrating their online content with the digital archive, a deeper level of interaction with readership has been realized.
Business and Technical Achievements
Creation of the Archive Platform has yielded the following for Rolling Stone:
- New revenue streams
- Deeper level of interaction with readers
- ROI that has exceeded expectations
- Entry into the digital age
Additionally, the publication has seen the following technological advances:
- Increased scalability and security
- Enhanced performance
- Mobile capabilities
- Enhanced navigation, zoom and search functions
Technology
- HTML5
- Microsoft Azure
- Silverlight
