In addition to our list of growing federal clients, AIS’ expertise in the publishing industry is opening doors for new technological advances in the industry. Our work with Vogue and Bondi Digital Publishing is a prime example of how we are able to develop technology that creates new revenue streams for publishers. AIS built a digital distribution platform to usher publications like Vogue into the digital age – by providing them with a turnkey solution to deploy print magazine archives online for viewing on desktops, laptops and mobile devices. For Vogue in particular, the initial launch included more than 2,700 issues from 1992 to the present.
Background
Vogue is an American fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 23 national and regional editions. Vogue’s far-reaching influence stems from various sources, including many charitable and community projects; the ability to reflect political discourse through fashion and editorial articles; and its move into emerging economies. However, as we move further and further into a digital age, every magazine faces similar issues – how to stay current with emergent trends, while also continuing to deliver quality content.
The Challenge
AIS would need to address the following three areas in order to provide the most viable solution: scale, cloud hosting and HTML5 Viewer. Vogue required a solution that could scale to archives with thousands of issues. With an existing cap at 100 issues, AIS would have to re-architect the publication’s “print to digital” conversion tools, associated viewers, as well as the backing database, to scale indefinitely.
The publication’s existing platform was an on-premise-only solution. AIS was tasked with developing a Microsoft Azure cloud-based solution that would allow smaller publishers to take advantage of the service, while providing all publishers scalability, security and performance. In order to implement an iPad version of the archive, AIS would need to create an IOS-compatible HTML5-based viewer. This would require customized tools and coding to overcome the memory, processing and storage limitation of IOS.
Solution
AIS implemented a multitier 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. AIS’ re-architected conversion tools are then applied to create digital versions that are web-ready and deployable to a variety of consumer devices.
The platform built by AIS consists of flexible, scalable website architecture with HTML5 and Silverlight magazine viewers that display exact replicas of the original print issues. Users can navigate using mouse, keyboard or touch. They can also zoom, conduct complex searches, apply different page views, bookmark and print. On the backend, an AIS-developed administration site provides content editing, text mining, search-indexing and subscription management. The platform can be integrated with clients’ own authentication and entitlement engines, or function as a standalone solution.
Business and Technical Achievements
Creation of the Archive Platform has yielded the following for Vogue (and subsequently many of Bondi’s other publications):
- New revenue streams
- ROI that has exceeded expectations
- Entry into the digital age
- A potential business-to-consumer version of the product
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
