Post on 17-Nov-2014
description
Stephen Dunn, head of technology strategy
Mat Wall & Phil Wills, technical architects
Rebuilding guardian.co.uk
Online since 1996
1.5M pages and counting
181M pages/month (Jan 08)
19.7M visitors (Jan 08)
3x Webby award winner
guardian.co.uk1999 - 2007
Online since 1996
1.5M pages and counting
181M pages/month (Jan 08)
19.7M visitors (Jan 08)
3x Webby award winner
guardian.co.uk1999 - 2007
Online since 1996
1.5M pages and counting
181M pages/month (Jan 08)
19.7M visitors (Jan 08)
3x Webby award winner
guardian.co.uk1999 - 2007
Online since 1996
1.5M pages and counting
181M pages/month (Jan 08)
19.7M visitors (Jan 08)
3x Webby award winner
guardian.co.uk1999 - 2007
Relaunch, 2007-2008
Relaunch, 2007-2008
Relaunch, 2007-2008
Relaunch, 2007-2008
Relaunch, 2007-2008
Could not redesign
Thousands of templates with content and presentation mixed
Editors manually created most navigation
Platform unable to:
create open services around content
connect to other services on the web
No strong information model beyond “stuff on a page”
What was wrong
Resources should be:
permanent
addressable
discoverable
New web, new rules
“A cool URI is one that does not change” Tim Berners-Lee 1998
1.5 million resources redirected to new URL scheme
Permanent
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fstorr/
AddressableResources are “about” something and there is a resource for everything meaningful - ready for the social web, e.g.: “share this” shares something meaningful
The “age of point-at-things” (Coates 2005)
Usability testing showed
Browsing the web most people don’t really know which site they are on, let alone the section of the site.
Discoverable
Multiple routes to content
Most content is multifaceted
Wherever there is more than one piece of content gathered - offer it as a feed
Discoverable
Multiple routes to content
Most content is multifaceted
Wherever there is more than one piece of content gathered - offer it as a feed
Discoverable
iraq
guardian
sportworld news media
usa iraq tenniscricket rugby tvradio press
iraq
guardian
sportworld news media
usa iraq tenniscricket rugby tvradio press
Automatically generate pages and navigation
Still under editorial control
Routes to content
Automatically generate pages and navigation
Still under editorial control
Routes to content
Automatically generate pages and navigation
Still under editorial control
Routes to content
Automatically generate pages and navigation
Still under editorial control
Routes to content
Automatically generate pages and navigation
Still under editorial control
Routes to content
Automatically generate pages and navigation
Still under editorial control
Routes to content
Pages are responsible for aggregating the core resource and other data for our readers
Pages are associated with templates which provide layout for the data
Pages can be rendered in more than one way
Our architecture: pages
The addressable resource is the content
We only allow one core resource per URL
We can have multiple types of content
We also need the to create pages that aggregate many resources
url
template
Page
Content
Article Video
1
1
Our architecture: pages
The world is not a hierarchy
Tags categorise content
Tags provide many routes to content
Tags drive syndication
Our architecture: tags
Our architecture: tags
We can have many types of tag
Tag pages can automatically aggregate related content
Folders provide alternate taxonomy for groups of tags
Associations freely managed by editors
url
Page
Content
1
1
Tag **
1
1
Keyword Author etc.
Folder **
Tags drive advertising and 3rd party integration
Our architecture: tags
Tags drive advertising and 3rd party integration
Our architecture: tags
Tags drive advertising and 3rd party integration
Our architecture: tags
External information
Traditional feed: use database as integration point
Model and store external entities in internal database
External information
Requires knowledge of external business logic
Complex and expensive to build
Impedance mismatch: does not make use of the resource oriented nature of the web
Database
App server
Feed
Web server
External system
net
External information
External information
Delegate as much understanding & management of data as possible
Model should be resource oriented. External information should be “attached” rather than persisted.
Use simplest possible caching for external information
Business relationship should be partnership, not supplier / consumer
Using the web
Database
App server
Web server
External system
netProxy
Using the webSimple change of not using the database as integration point reduces the cost of integration
No longer need to fully understand external business logic
No longer need to clear cache
Information more up to date
How we see football
Match
Home Team Away Team
Tournament
How we see football
Match
Home Team Away Team
Tournament
Tag Content
Resource oriented model
Match
Home Team Away Team
Tournament
/football/match/2008/12345
/football/tournament/15
/football/team/500/football/team/31
App serverExternal
systemnetProxy
/football/match/2008/04/all
/football/tournament/15/teams/football/tournament/15/matches
Match
Home Team Away Team
Tournament
External information
url
template
Page
Content
1
1
Tag **
1
1
type
token
External Info
* *
**
1
1
Persist the minimum information
Prepared to develop simple custom API
Reliable on the web.
Enter into SLA
Small supplier may proxy larger suppliers API
Shopping for suppliers
Thanks.
Join us...http://www.gnmcareers.co.uk
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/inside/