ifra local media presentation: my own city
DESCRIPTION
Presentation of My Own City service from IFRA Local Media conference.TRANSCRIPT
My Own City
Combining a Local Directory with a Hyper Local CommunityHS.fi / Finland
Lassi Kurkijärvi, Business Development Manager / Helsingin SanomatJeremias Koskela, Project Manager / Sanoma Data
My Own City –Everyday Answers
• We provide the Greater Helsinki Area with solutions to everyday needs and problems: What to do? Where to go?
• It’s a......local Directory,...local Community,...place for local Experts
• I need a great tailor!Where is a good restaurant, which hairdresser is the best,who can fix my car?
Photo by David Dennis
The Newspaperin Finland
• Circulation 420 000 copies
• 995 000 readers
• Over a million online users
• Part of Sanoma Corporation
Launched inAugust 2007
• Part of HS.fi Online Service
• HS.fi 1 000 000+unique visitors /week
• Oma kaupunki 80 000+unique visitors /week(hs.fi/omakaupunki)
• Massive database of places –currently over 12 000
• Around 10 percent of placescontributed by users
Greater Helsinki Area is full of interesting places –Use the Map to Discover them
• Restaurant and Event datafrom Nyt weekly supplement
• Public data from various official sources, such as municipal andstate authorities
• Local news produced by journalists; geotagged and keyworded
• Users can add their own reviews, photos, places, events and questions/answers
Combination ofData Sources
Building itBlock by Block
• Today we’ll tell you about what we’ve learned: one year on there is still a long way to go
• Building a community
• Understanding our users
• Designing a good UI
• Getting the tech together
• Return on investment
Photo by Holger Zschegye
Find a Place
Events
GroupsReview
andQ & A
Editorial content: celebrity faves & best places
Search
Browse
User photos
Rate it!
MMS and mobile News
Map alwaysbrowsable
Sponsors
Events
Who isattending?
What do theUsers Do?
• Users are happy to rate: it’s easy!
• They write reviews...
• And ask questions!
...but We Want More!
• Analytics development centered on social behaviour and user needs
• Co-operation with Finnish technical universities on the psychology of social media
• Persistent user profiles
• Development of social reward systems (”the King of the Town”), user relationship analytics and a recommendation engine to find places
Photo by Peyri
Building a Communityis never easy
• How to build a culture of participation and sharing?
• Positive word of mouth?
• Do incentives such as user ranking based on activity work?
• How should you rate users: for inviting your friends, for providing content which gets positive reviews...
Improve the UI:Use of Heatmaps; Virtual Earth licensed for use
• How was it all possible?
• A combination of different techs
• Making it all work: Jeremias tells it now
A Look UnderThe Hood
Photo by Ralph Bijker
August 2007:1.0 release
November 2007:1.1 release- Bug fixes
- Add Outscoped features
February 2008:1.2 release
- Feature development- History logging for future use
April 2008:1.5 release
- First big update- Community
features:* Groups
* Questions* New frontpage
October 2008:1.7 release
- Admin tools- Event search
improved
December 2008:1.8 release
- Virtual Earthimplementation
J2EEApplication
Server
Database
SearchEngine
Discussion/forum service
Event service
User dataservice
WEBSERVICES
Editorial service
Integrationplatform
Technical Architecture
•! J2EE Portal-technology
(Liferay portal server)
•! SOA-centered architecture
•! Duplicated nodes and load-
balancing
•! Connections through integration platform (broker)
in the future
FrontLoad
balancing
ApplicationLoad
balancing
Http-server node 1(Apache)
Http-server node 2(Apache)
App-server node 1(Tomcat)
App-server node 2(Tomcat)
Active databasenode
Passive databasenode
Current Application Setup
•! All nodes duplicated
•! Load balancing (router VIP) in
every layer
•! Basic PC/Linux nodes running
with
•! Apache 2.2
•! Tomcat 6.x
•! Active/Passive node with
database
•! Oracle 10g
Why Did We Use Portal Tech?
• SOA: Easy to combine several background services together and use of legacy services
• Standard J2EE portlets (jsr-168) means sharing codebase & portlets with other services
• User interface (in Liferay portal) enables drag-and-drop portlets, allowing change of themes and column structure
• Content is WYSIWYG with a Simple CMS (Liferay journal); separates pure CMS operations and presentation logic
Photo by Ronnie Garcia
Some Challenges Using Portal and SOA
• Response times and latency
• Complexity of architecture (SOA)
• Problem solving – hard to figure where the problem is
• Performance in very big services
Photo by Jurvetson
Making Money
• The Directory is journalistic content so all Places get equal regular visibility
• Sponsored search, contextual ad banners, expanded place descriptions and map POI –is this too complex?
• Customers are happy: we are driving a good amount of traffic to their restaurants and homepages!
• Package it better!Photo by Tao Zhyn
Commercialdevelopment
• Google is an important source of visitors due to excellent SEO
• The more places we have in the service, the more visitors we attract via search
• Expansion of service using Wiki-style methods?
• Key of media business model: attention and appreciation
Photo by Positv
Proving the Concept
• Going from Local to...
Globally Local!
• My Own World launching in January, building on what welearned with My Own City
• “From Finns – For Finns”
• Is this an easier concept?
What’s Next?
• 50 000 places
• 250 000 visitors fromGreater Helsinki Area
• Vibrant community
• New source of income fora newspaper
• Patience
Photo by Amir Fathi