The Challenge
Condé Nast is home to global brands like Vogue, GQ, and Wired. The US operations use a custom platform to manage video on their websites, apps, and third-party platforms like YouTube and Facebook. They wanted to deploy their powerful tools across their global operations, and Apollo lead the charge in the internationalization efforts.
The Process
We listened to the needs of the core video team as well as the globally distributed video teams. What is their current process? What is critical for their workflow? When are they able to migrate over to the new platform/process? We developed a detailed plan of execution that balanced product/team needs with expected development time.
We were transparent in what tasks would be done first and their respective effort. Before starting on complex tasks, we wrote concise Request for Comment (RFC) documents detailing our proposed approach. What will the end user experience be like? How will the software be architected? What are the tradeoffs and benefits of different solutions? We want any team we're working with to understand and be involved in major decisions.
We were embedded within Condé Nast's team and utilized their existing process for development and delivery. Our code went through their review process and their steps for release. We are very flexible and are happy to adapt work within a client's process.
The Work
We updated the existing CMS tool to support international users. We ensured that upload performance was great for users in different geographies. We made sure language support was robust. We set up granular user roles to enable a wide variety of workflows. Finally, we added a robust feature flagging system so local teams can customize their experience.
We also worked on consumer facing components. We localized the custom player and set up support for global monetization. We also integrated with Facebook, Youtube, and other syndication partners.
We were able to service feature requests from teams all over the world, and delivered on the core team's roadmap.