Gredi archives Sanoma's Crown Jewels
Newspaper digitizes quickly. Many have already switched from a printed magazine to an electronic user device. In addition to the user habits, content and production processes have also changed. In addition to traditional news, for example, personal profiles, data journalism and adventurous articles have multiplied. Along with traditional news, stories that last a long time are produced as well.
Sanoma Media Finland’s brands reach almost every Finn on weekly basis. News are produced around the clock. Hundreds of articles, pictures, stories and news from all around the world are created daily. In support of it, Sanoma needs a reliable archive that helps authors and readers find the right content.
120 years of Finnish history
Sanoma’s Digital News Archive is integrated into editorial systems that deal with the content published in the Group’s magazines. Digital News Archive serves hundreds of journalists every day. In addition, the Helsingin Sanomat archive is available to hundreds of thousands of subscribers on the Aikakone website www.hs.fi/aikakone.
Digital News Archive has unique information and pictures of the times from Finland for 120 years. Its value is significant not only production wise but also for cultural history reasons.
In 2015, Sanoma decided to renew its Digital News Archive. In the digital renovation, over 3 million pages, 5 million images and 5 million files were transferred to a new platform.
Sami Majaniemi from Sanoma participated in project management as a content technology manager. He describes the content stored in Digital News Archive as Sanoma’s Crown Jewels. Many of the news stories that have startled Finns and the great investigative journalism have their origin in Sanoma’s editorial offices.
Passion for data management
Digital News Archive is a critical part of the daily production of Sanoma brands. Robust platform provides information for 24-hour use. It includes easy-to-use data management tools that allow journalists to find the information they need. For administrators, the service provides a constantly evolving, cost-effective and secure environment.
“The application must be easy to use, but at the same time a comprehensive information source. Because search results are often long lists, you need to keep browsing smooth and make additional searches easy. And of course, the information must be available regardless of the time of the day.”
Reliable and secure platform
Gredi has supported and developed Sanoma’s archive services since the 1990s, so cooperation in the reneval was a natural thing. At the same time, the data center of DataCenter Finland, part of the same group as Gredi, was selected as the location for Digital News Archive,
“ The transition to the new platform was done without major problems. The project was well designed and prepared.”
The new solution also brings Sanoma significant cost and time savings when 700 users were given faster search functionality and improved usability.
Agile partnership
According to Sami Majaniemi, Gredi’s know-how in digital asset management complements well Sanoma’s content expertise. The new service model includes Gredi’s agile mini-development model that improves usability and provides additional benefits at a steady pace. Sanoma does not have to reserve technical resources to development as Gredi takes care of the whole implementation.
The platform’s information security and compliance with EU requirements were validated during the commissioning audit.
“Our idea was to have a digital asset management professional helping us so we can focus on developing our own business. The mini-development model makes our work easier. Gredi is a strong and development-oriented expert in their own field.”
The project also included the development of metadata for images and texts. They help users get more relevant search results. Artificial intelligence is developing rapidly, but some of the information still needs to be entered manually, such as image rights. The machines are not yet able to recognize the context or location of the image very well. Therefore, for example, captions will continue to provide important information about the content of the image.
Top-class project expertise
Comprehensive and up-to-date metadata as well as classification make it easier to personalize the data to bring out the most important, relevant and desirable content for each reader. The digital versions of Helsingin Sanomat already personalize the content.
The share of cloud services is likely to increase in the future. Then you need a partner who can combine the best parts of the digital asset management and cloud platform.
“Digital News Archive is a critical content service that must operate in all situations. The platform is stable and the benefits of faster usage are already apparent. That’s why I recommend the Gredi operating model.”
Sanoma Media Finland
Sanoma Media Finland is a multi-channel media house in Finland. It reaches almost all Finns daily with newspapers, magazines, television, radio, online as well on mobile.
Sanoma Media Finland publishes the largest newspaper in the Nordic countries and the pioneer in paid digital journalistic content Helsingin Sanomat and Finland’s largest news media Ilta-Sanomat. The range of media includes Sanoma Lifestyle, the magazine brand, Kids Media, a children’s and youth content publisher, Nelonen Media, the leading television and radio operator, and Sanoma Digital Finland, the developer of Finland’s most popular marketplaces.
