Publishing breaking news, like sports and football, can be brutal. A key requirement is the ability to peak.
“It’s a race against the clock,” says VI’s Product Owner, Mathijs Kraai. “A bit exaggerated, but the publisher that is first to publish the news gets all the traffic.” This means that a CMS has to be easy to use, to enable the fast creation of articles and other content.
Peaks bring challenges for publishers. If there is big, breaking news, an editor sends a push message to registered users, then in one go, the number of active users increases tenfold. If content is slow or delayed, the user experience suffers. A digital platform has to be able to take on peak loads and to scale this in the future.
VI also wanted to personalize the online experience, to reflect content preferences in order to increase reader loyalty and engagement.