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TheStreet.com
Designing and developing pioneering technology and processes
TheStreet.com, which provides timely, accurate financial news and analysis to 70,000 paid subscribers worldwide, had an ambitious wish list:
- turn a relatively static financial news site into a regularly updated news hub
- facilitate the rapid dissemination of the planet's most sought-after information - financial news from Wall Street - to diverse sites across the web
- build a 'storefront' to allow readers to subscribe to first-class services and purchase related merchandise.
Extra mile
"When I was looking around for consulting partners to help me rebuild the entire publishing infrastructure for TheStreet.com, I faced the decision of whether to use VISION, an Irish company just starting its New York operations," recalls Dan Woods, then chief technology officer with TheStreet.com.
"I had other choices but felt that VISION would go that extra mile for me and would create a valuable relationship. As it turned out, I was right. VISION took on helping TheStreet.com as if it were its own business."
Publishing solution
VISION's team began by analysing TheStreet.com's complex publishing process, which involved 45 full-time reporters and editors, and more than two dozen columnists and contributors.
VISION implemented Extensible Markup Language (XML)-driven data infrastructure, and built an underlying architecture tailored specifically for content management. The result was a streamlined, accelerated process of collaborative content creation and editorial workflow.
Understanding that a technology solution alone was not enough, VISION also designed the day-to-day business process by which content was created. The virtual newsroom allowed financial journalists to create and update their analyses 'before, during and after the bell'.
Syndication solution
Getting the information out to the world was the next challenge. Along with TheStreet.com's own family of free and subscription-based sites, the company's content is delivered to portals such as America Online and Yahoo! Finance, each with audiences of millions.
VISION developed a syndication system that allowed the content to be tailored for the look and feel of the different sites at which it arrived. Syndicated content feeds were could be delivered at regular and brief intervals, allowing for rapid updating of financial news stories on destination sites.
Storefront solution
VISION then added in-house ecommerce system rather painlessly. This storefront enables TheStreet.com to closely manage and monitor subscriptions.
VISION also implemented a consumer asset database system that enables TheStreet.com to better understand and profile its subscribers. TheStreet.com is able to use this data to craft more targeted offers to select audiences and to create a more personalised Web experience.
"VISION provided us with a truly customised approach to designing and implementing the technology we need to enhance our services, increase our delivery channels, and further develop our subscriber base and our overall business," said Woods.
The lesson
"The solution we put in place for TheStreet.com is an excellent example of how once-disparate sectors are rapidly converging, with the rise of the Internet," said Gerald Adams, VISION's co-founder and Group Director.
"We believe content management and syndication will be an integral part of knowledge management systems in all service-oriented enterprises, not just in new media, entertainment and leisure sectors, but also in banking and financial services."
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