Chattanooga Times Free Press
episode49 continues to enforce a higher standard of excellence in web design.
In the mid-summer of 2007, the Chattanooga Times Free Press hired episode49 to do
a needs and performance analysis on timesfreepress.com after experiencing multiple
problems from developments implemented by other vendors and developers over the
years that began to plague the newspaper's website. The results of the 45 page analysis
showed that potential future growth was impossible and would likely fail under the
current platform.
"Timesfreepress.com is a major portion of our future," says Ed Bourn, Online Director
for the Chattanooga Times Free Press and timesfreepress.com, "so timing and speed
to market means everything to us to deliver the news when our readers need it. We
had to get a new system up and running quickly and not lose any of our rich and
critical archived data."
As a result of the challenges outlined in the web analysis, a partnership emerged
between episode49 and the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Timeliness would play big factor in the implementation of a completely new website
platform, as well as, overcoming the learning curve of a new system in record time.
"They learned it (Django) quickly," said Bourn, "I know newspapers that invested
in teams of developers to support their sites under this platform and needed months
of preparation. In fact, the quickest any newspaper has developed on this platform
and actually launched was 4 months. episode49 helped us get it done in 2 and a half!"
Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and
clean, pragmatic design. It was developed and used for over two years by a fast-moving
online-news operation, and was designed to handle the challenges of the intensive
deadlines of a newsroom.
"While new to Django and the Ellington online publishing system, we were able to
use our experience with systems integration to produce effective results," said
Ken Smith, managing partner of episode49. "In fact, only just a few days after launching
the new Times Free Press website, it broke all records for single day traffic without
interruption. That was a credit to both episode49 and the Times Free Press online
team."
"They delivered on every aspect of the project, meeting and exceeding our expectations
throughout the process. They shared our goals and helped us meet them. I have worked
with a lot of software and consulting companies," continued Bourn, "this was a true
partnership; something I have not seen in a long time during my career."