Bonnier Magazines is pushing the boundaries of what you can do with WordPress. With the help of the WordPress API, a new app takes only about 20 hours to develop.
Bonnier Tidskrifter started the migration from the publishing tool Episerver to WordPress in December 2013 with the help of the agency Odd Alice who assisted with both work and strategic advice along the way. But it was more than just changing one publishing tool for another. The whole project will be completed in Q1 2017.
-WordPress is today a framework for web applications regardless of how we present our content. By working with the WordPress API, we can today build a mobile app for one of our brands in 20 hours,” says Gabriel Sjölund, Product Manager for Digital Media at Bonnier Tidskrifter.
Earlier this year, for example, Allt om mat launched a wine app where all new wines on the system are reviewed. WordPress then acts as a content library from which both sites and apps retrieve their content.
– In principle, we could choose a system other than WordPress to present a brand on the web. WordPress becomes a content library regardless of digital channel,” says Gabriel Sjölund.
Today, the magazine publisher Bonnier Tidskrifter has all its most important brands on WordPress. And Angry Creative has won the trust to be responsible for all the management of all their WordPress installations, complementing the regular production carried out by Bonnier’s agency partners. Management means everything from testing, deployment, development processes, assurance and how to work between all the different steps of the process. A prestigious assignment that comes from Angry Creative’s processes and long experience of building and managing advanced WordPress projects.
Bonnier Tidskrifter’s latest project is a new version of Veckorevyn, which was already available on WordPress.
-“We are quite proud of what we have done. It would have been easier to build an app as a separate project, but by utilizing the WordPress API, each new app becomes a fairly small project, says Gabriel Sjölund.
When media companies want to make theme sites, they often choose WordPress because it is easy to tell stories on WordPress. Gabriel mentions, for example, the newspaper Dagens Nyheter’s subsite to mark the tenth anniversary of the tsunami in Southeast Asia.
Much of the functionality of their brands, such as recipe management on Allt om mat, has been developed by Bonnier themselves.
– “We are happy to be inspired by ready-made plugins, but in the end we develop ourselves. We don’t want to be dependent on a third-party plugin.
Have you also further developed the interface for newspaper editors?
-One of the advantages of WordPress is that most people are familiar with its interface. Even new employees have often worked with WordPress before. Therefore, we have done something with the interface.
Are there any disadvantages of WordPress?
-As the world’s most popular publishing tool, we are constantly exposed to hacking attempts. You have to think about security and choose the right hosting that can keep track of logs.
Bonnier Tidskrifter has chosen to make WordPress the hub of their entire business. Here we see a new way of working where the framework makes it possible to outsource the production of individual brands to many different suppliers. At the same time, it places high demands on processes, management, testing and hosting. Rapid development requires secure management.