The number of moving pieces was monumental…

Move the storage of videos from the NetApp to the Isilon, ingest the new British MovieTone content, create the new product rules and metadata changes, replay all 1.5 million video stories for new metadata and re-productization, re-index the stories with a new FAST index profile, modify the Workflow tool to manually curate products, add the new features in the eBiz database, upgrade eAP Admin to accommodate Subscription and Metered business models, complete the new additions to the eBiz Service, make Dashboard changes to accommodate batch processing, enhance the integration with ScheduAll for Subscription and Metered billing… all behind the scenes to power the Archive Portal changes themselves.

Manage requirements, complete estimates and timelines, create new designs, integrate batch processing, add new search filters, build in subscription and metered eCommerce models, add support for licenses, rework the minimum declaration model, migrate folders, add new users, complete automated and manual testing, provide and test rollback procedures, run performance and load tests, promote everything through the environments, write the documentation, plan and coordinate with everyone, attend daily stand ups, and launch successfully.

Forgive me now.  I am sure I have left things out – I won’t be able to list them all, or remember them all.  I am also sure I will forget someone to thank – there were so many people involved in the success of our project.  And it was a success.  Because of all of us.  Thank you all.  You have made the impossible possible.

Brian

The Associated Press launched its new Video Hub web site, http://www.apvideohub.com, focusing on Broadcast quality world news, entertainment, sport and lifestyle video from the AP. Breaking news and related archive on the same platform, at the same time.  This web site offers:

• Search and view all video content
• Over 100 videos updated daily
• Up-to-the-minute video news
• Access the upcoming coverage calendar
• Browse curated topic pages
• “Follow” stories of interest
• Fast download to desktop

Congratulations go out to all those that were involved in the development and launch of the site.  My development team in London were the susperstars – Mark, Dries, Jon, Kofi, David, and Brendan were the heart and soul of this site.  Without Clark, Rich, and Stewart on the Infrastructure team, we would not have made it.  And without Jim, Alan, and the pipeline team, we would have no videos to preview or sell on the site. Kudos to everyone for bringing Sue’s vision to life.

Read all about the launch in these links:

• AP launches online video delivery platform for digital publishers
• Econsultancy – Associated Press launches online Video Hub for digital publishers
• StreamingMedia.com – AP Launches Video Hub for News Sites
• TVTechnology – AP Launches Online Video Delivery Platform
• TheDrum – Associated Press unveils beta version of video hub
• Advanced Television – Online video news delivery platform from AP

The Associated Press has launched their new home page web site at http://www.ap.org .  This site is the first launched with the new AP brand and logo, and was released with the new AP Mobile application for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

It is also a site that has launched using a new technology platform we have been developing at the AP, using ASP.net MVC for the front end of the site, SDL Tridion as a CMS for page creation, FAST as the search index, and lots of jQuery.  Features baked into the site are the user-managed navigation, the 3 and 4 column components, carousel component on the home page and section front pages, standard articles and article index, automated sitemap.xml creation, SEO friendly pages, and the ability to publish new content without the involvement of Development staff.

Congratulations go out to Steve and Igor for the site development and design, Christine for being patient as we worked through the project, Dharamvir for finding all our bugs before we find them in production, and Mara for pulling us all together and keeping us focused.

 From the AP web site:

The AP Country Music News Widget is the industry’s first real-time, fully-hosted web service “widget” focused exclusively on country music news and information. The Country Music Widget provides stories, images and video covering the latest in country entertainment news from album reviews to award winners. The Country Music Widget is branded for your station and website, and local advertisers can be inserted directly into the widget.

The product has been in beta from November 2010 and has finally launched today.  Congratulations to Steve, Madhu, Clark, Parendu, Keyur, Jen, Betsy, and Mike for a fine job on building and launching the new Widget platform, and its first product, the Country Radio Music Widget.

Read about the Country Radio Music Widget at these links:

• AP Radio
• AP Offers New Music News Widget For Country Radio Web Sites
• Associated Press Announces Widget For Country Stations

iCircular is the mobile home to Sunday newspaper ads leading shoppers to great deals and savings at their favorite stores from their smartphone. This new product, created by The Associated Press, launched on September 19, 2011.  Congratulations go to the entire iCircular team for their hard work, dedication, and effort on this.  You have all done a great job!

You can read more about the launch and the products on the iCircular web site, and you can see some of the great press that the product is getting at the links below

• Fierce Mobile – Associated Press teams with local papers to launch iCircular mobile ads
• Poynter – AP, newspapers to redeem their share of coupon business with mobile app iCircular, starting today
• St Louis Post-Dispatch – Post-Dispatch launches iCircular for mobile advertising
• Fierce Mobile – Associated Press teams with local papers to launch iCircular mobile ads

This post is long overdue, but is still significant.  The new Associated Press College Football Hub web site is now in production (As of August 21).  It  is stable, is recieving traffic, and the data is flowing.  This site is the new home of the AP Top 25 poll, which is updated each Sunday afternoon, along with th Harris Poll, the BCS Poll, and the USA Today Poll.  Youc an even submit your own version of the poll, if you think the sports wriers got it wrong!  You can see the site now at http://sports.ap.org/college-football .  You can also see the press release announcing the launch of the site at http://www.ap.org/pages/about/pressreleases/pr_082310a.html.

This site is a significant evolution of the Winter Games and World Cup site, integrating with our new Press Pass Registration Service, as well as major enhancements from the Content API to include college football data.  Some of the new technologies that are being implemented in this site include cufon (for font amangement), prototype and jQuery, WebTrends and Google Analytics, the WebPurify profanity filter service, as well as tight integration with Facebook and Twitter.

Check it out!  Let me know what you think!  Leave me some feedback!