Relaunch of the Internet platform for the European radio network Euranet
Overview
The goal of the website relaunch was to restructure the content and give the website a facelift. Euranet now places even greater focus on European themes and on promoting collaboration between the participating radio stations. The platform’s core content is made up of audio files augmented with other suitable content. Users will be able to participate more in future.
The solution in detail
As was the case when the website was first launched in 2008, the structure and design of the portal will be revised in close collaboration with the long-standing silver.solutions partners at agency Konradi.
Euranet will continue to use the complex CMS solution from Ibexa that has been optimised for media companies. The latest version of the CMS will now be used. This will bring an improvement to the user interface, especially for editors. Together with the latest version, the innovative integrated portal solution can now also be used. Using blocks, it allows the homepages to be flexibly designed and provides comprehensive functions for managing site content.
The most important new development of the relaunch when it comes to content is a focus on the radio programmes. There is now only audio content, supplemented by editorial contributions, images, videos and slideshows. Tailored to the needs of Euranet, an interface to the so-called audio exchange platform was developed , where all audio files are managed centrally. These are continuously transmitted via FTP to Ibexa Content and imported into the CMS with the relevant metadata. The editors can then simply add to this and place it in the column for publication.
The JW Player will still be used to play back the audio files, but it has now been integrated globally and is available on every page. A new feature are the freely definable playlists, which can be created from anywhere.
Euranet currently offers content in 15 languages. The plan is to integrate all 23 official EU languages. There will no longer be a strict separation by language. Flags will indicate the languages in which a contribution is available. This is designed to promote cross-border communication and highlight the various perspectives in Europe.
The weekly “Euranet Special”, which is the same for all languages, forms the centre and hub of the new service. Each week, a different editorial department is responsible for the content and the individual countries contribute content from their own perspective. It is therefore now possible, for instance, to listen to radio contributions on a single topic in 10 different languages. As soon as a new “Euranet Special” is created, the previous content will be placed in a dossier. In parallel to this, other content can be created individually as a dossier, which will deal with one specific topic in-depth.
Communication via social networks is an increasingly important component. Euranet uses the services of AddThis to link contents to many different social platforms. There is also a Facebook page which is linked up directly. On Euranet, users can talk about the contributions directly using the comment function. The Euranet Twitter feed is integrated, as are the latest comments. The survey tool was expanded in such a way that the results can now be viewed overall as well as individually for the different countries.
The result
With its relaunch, Euranet focuses on its core competence – radio. The website is now tidier and clearer and provides more space for user involvement. The multilingual presentation of contents opens up interesting perspectives, sparks discussions and is thought-provoking. Europeans are starting to talk to each other.
