Lessons along the open road - the story of n0tice

LESSONS ALONG THE OPEN ROAD

The story of n0tice or...

“How a hack day project became a product which grew up to be a platform”

Friday, 26 April 2013

WHAT AM I TRYING TO PROVE?

HYPOTHESIS:

1) Hack day projects can become real, but it’s not easy

2) Starting with commercial intent is a good thing

3) The Internet likes platforms that fuel participation


A Hack - “News Signals”

Funding - Reallocated budget for consultants to devs instead

Vision - Wrote a white paper on ‘Generative Media Networks’

RESOURCES TO WORK WITH


News International Twitter, Inc.Friday, 26 April 2013

Enablers• Purpose• Principles• Platforms

Users

Innovation Partners

StoriesData

Prod

ucts

Users, Partn

ers, Innovat

ion are

ingredients

of the sys

tem


PART 1: OPEN CREATION


THINGS THAT ARE EASY

GETTING A USER’S LOCATION

GETTING ITEMS WITHIN A RADIUS OF THAT LOCATION

POSTING/GETTING CONTENT FROM A DB


THINGS THAT ARE HARD

WORKING ON SOMETHING ON THE SIDE

INSPIRING PEOPLE (USERS, COLLABORATORS, AND BOSSES)

ALIGNING A VISION WITH FUNDING



“Take that, Craigslist! n0tice, The Guardian’s community message board, makes its public debut”

- Nieman Journalism Lab, Nov 2011


http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/11/take-that-craigslist-n0tice-the-guardians-community-message-board-makes-its-public-debut/






1) Hacks are not products.

It’s hard to finish whatyou startedsometimes.

20112009


PART 2: OPEN COLLABORATION


VISION + EXECUTION = ...LOWER DEPENDENCE ON LUCK?

WE HIT 10-30K QUICKLY

SOLID PARTICIPATION AND ENGAGEMENT

POSITIVE CUSTOMER FEEDBACK

BUT...

NO $

GROWTH HIT A WALL


REVISING THE PROPOSITION FOR A SINGLE PURPOSE - GROWTH

“n0tice is about waking up to your physical surroundings and doing something about it”

“What’s happening near you”

1. LOCAL ENGAGEMENT: What would you like to #Change or #Celebrate about #myhighstreet?

2. TOPICAL INTEREST: Tell us what you love about your cycling route, encourage others to #keepcycling through the winter


BACKED BY ELASTIC SEARCH

HIGH PERFORMANCE AND SCALABILITY ON EC2

TESTED FOR SECURITY

OAUTH 1.1

IMAGE PROCESSING

EXTERNALIZING OUR TOOLS




“Remember that pitch for a white label of n0tice?

We won it!...

...Can you build it in 6 weeks?”

- Happy Salesperson


Admitted we didn’t know how to grow it

Played to our strengths: Relationship with The Guardian, Being mobile-first, Our open position re: the Internet

Used marketing budget for SW development and Built new tools as a open services

Used the campaign to test new partner models... brainstormed with sales people a lot

Reached into #Hashtag-Land rather than drive everything through our products

Let the creative people be creative

SOME SMART THINGS WE DID





201220112009

2)Commercialintention createspotential. Adjustas opportunity presents itself.


PART 3: OPEN MARKET


THE DOUBLE AGENDA

1. BUILD GUARDIANWITNESS

(On-Time, Under budget, high quality)

2. MAKE EVERYTHING LICENSEABLE



#3 FREE NEWS APP WITHIN A WEEK OF LAUNCH


N0TICE TEAM

GDN DEV/

PRODUCT

GDN SALES

GDN EDITORS

CLIENT AGENCY


N0TICE TEAM

IPHONE APP

ANDROID APPWEB SITE

TOOLS





“Hey, let’s use the sponsor’s logo in the pull-to-refresh.”

“Yeah, it’s perfect for that.”

“Uh, I don’t think they want to be associated with waiting for things to come

down the network.”


GUARDIANWITNESS

• API• Elastic Search• S3 and EC2• Cacheing and

load balancing• Geo Services• OAuth


GUARDIANWITNESS

GDN USER REG

• API• Elastic Search• S3 and EC2• Cacheing and

load balancing• Geo Services• OAuth• Image processor• Video transcoder,

Virus scanner• Post to YouTube• Mod workflow• Media verify

GDN CMS


WORKFLOW

FILTER, BROWSE AND SEARCH

PREVIEW/EDIT POSTS

COLLABORATIVE MODERATION NOTES

USER FLAGS

AUDIT TRAIL

LOCATION DATA

EXIF DATA

MORE TOOLS TO LICENSE



2013



201220112009

2)Commercialintention createspotential. Adjustas opportunity presents itself.

3)Network nodescan fuel the core

which createsvalue for othernodes across the platform.


(Babs Rangaiah)


Technology

Lessons along the open road - the story of n0tice