C u s t o m e r C a s e s t u d y

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C U S T O M E R C A S E S T U D Y / G 2 P O

Several leading directors of video content for the

gaming world were frustrated by the limitations of

YouTube and asked solution provider IES Group

to build a better platform—one that could handle

large volumes of uploaded video content while

providing rich social interactions for gamers. IES

Group responded by creating G2PO.com, a new

video platform for the gaming world. The platform

runs on DNN Evoq Content1 which provides out-of-

the-box web farm support, a module for rich social

interaction, and the Microsoft .NET programming

environment for creating custom website features.

Business Needs

Gaming enthusiasts are heavy users of YouTube, yet the

online medium can be frustrating to hardcore gamers. For

example, they may not want to subscribe to channels just

to find content on one game, or they may have trouble

finding high-quality video reviews and other content that

matches their interests.

Gaming Site Aims to Take Video Content to a Higher Level Using DNN

G2PO is a new platform that supplies

high-quality video content to the

gaming industry. It is a business unit

of London, Ontario-based IES Group.

S U M M A R Y

C U S T O M E R P R O F I L E

P R O D U C T I M P L E M E N T E D

C U S T O M E R G2PO

W E B S I T E g2po.com

C O U N T R Y United States

I N D U S T R Y Entertainment

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C U S T O M E R C A S E S T U D Y / G 2 P O

That was the message delivered to IES Group by

multiple content directors responsible for some of

the largest volumes of gaming content on YouTube.

“The directors were seeking a new type of

architecture to help them store and manage

massive amounts of video, and to schedule

uploads of video content while using rich social

networking tools to communicate with gamers,”

says Gary Manning, Director of IT Business for IES

Group. “The problem with YouTube is that it often

falls short in providing what serious gamers want,

such as a dedicated focus on specific games, good

reviews or commentary on new games, and a rich

social community.”

The request spurred IES Group to design a new

platform to deliver high-quality video content not

just to end users, but to the entire gaming industry—

including developers, publishers, gaming news

publications, and independent video producers.

“We wanted to provide deep categorization

capabilities and broad social media integration,”

says Manning. “To do that, we knew we would have

to build the platform from the ground up using a

highly scalable web content management system.”

Solution

Manning and his colleagues rolled out a

new video platform for the gaming community

called G2PO.com.

After evaluating several potential solutions to host

G2PO, they decided to build it on Evoq Content

management system. DNN was ideal for G2PO

because of key features that could support a

successful launch of the new video platform.

“We knew that we would need web farm support

right out of the box to support our scalability needs,”

Manning says, “and we also needed the support

for the Microsoft .NET environment that would

allow us to do the custom work for features we

envisioned for G2PO.”

Manning and his team used the DNN Forum

module for the social community features of

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C U S T O M E R C A S E S T U D Y / G 2 P O

G2PO. For the remainder of the site, they used a

variety of Windows development tools to create

custom components.

For example, G2PO.com uses a custom uploading

feature that interacts with Dailymotion, a French

company that provides uploading and other

services for high-quality videos. In another example,

they created a graphic component on the site that

displays a red bar indicating a user’s “G2PO score”

for information like the number of forum posts and

“likes” and “dislikes.” The team also created banners

that are branded for particular companies or games

that appear at the top of individual channels.

The G2PO site launched, and in the first three

days had 300,000 unique visitors. Each month it

averages about 1 million page views and 450,000

video views by more than 25,000 registered users.

The gaming enthusiasts that G2PO attracts spend

more than two hours a month on the site, with per-

person visit time on a par with sites such as AOL

Media Network and Yahoo.

Benefits

By choosing Evoq Content, the creators of G2PO

had access to a powerful system for supporting a

new video platform for the gaming industry. The

scalability of DNN supports large numbers of users

as well as spikes in traffic. The social capabilities

native to DNN help provide rich community

interactions. And because it’s based on the .NET

platform, DNN supports custom development work

performed by G2PO to deliver a compelling new

outlet for gaming enthusiasts.

Scalability to Support High Traffic

Manning says the web farm support in DNN Evoq

Content was critical in helping his team choose

the web content management system for G2PO.

“Evoq Content was the only web content

management system that gave us what we needed

for a successful launch of G2PO—web farm support—

right out of the box,” he says, adding that G2PO

currently runs two servers to support its users.

“Once you have the web farm programmed, if a

request is made to one node and it’s too busy,

the request is simply sent to the next available

node. The web farm support in DNN gave us great

scalability on the first day of operation to manage

traffic and high volumes of video content.”

Rich Social Networking for Gamers

Another out-of-the-box feature in DNN that’s

invaluable for G2PO is the Forums module, which

helped the company provide the environment for

rich social interactions.

“Gamers are very active on social forums, and we

wanted a web content management system that

would help us build a social community without

needing to do extra development work,” says

Manning. “The social capabilities in other video

networks are not that great. With the DNN social

features, we can deliver a social community

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C U S T O M E R C A S E S T U D Y / G 2 P O

Gary manning Project manager and Creative director G2Po / director of It Business, Ies Group

the web farm support in evoq gave us great scalability on the first day of operation to manage traffic and high volumes of video content.”

structure that lets gamers easily add comments,

follow other users’ comments, provide feedback

on new releases, and more.”

Microsoft .NET Tools for Extensive Custom Features

Equipped with expertise in the .NET environment,

the creators of G2PO were able to take advantage

of industry-standard Windows development

software to build custom elements on top of the

DNN system, as well as integrate with other systems

like Dailymotion and YouTube.

“

“This was another element in our decision to go

with DNN,” says Manning. “A question that needs

to be asked about any CMS is how much flexibility

it will provide for custom products, and how well

it will integrate with other systems. Evoq Content

provided the flexibility and integration capabilities

we needed to make this project work.”

1 evoq Content was previously known as dNN Professional and enterprise editions.

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