MBN
The Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN) is the non-profit news organization that operates Alhurra Television and Radio Sawa under a grant from the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). The objective of this project is to leverage the “Voltron” content management system (CMS) developed by MBN’s sister agency, Voice of America (VOA) which was launched in June 2019 for www.voanews.com.
The Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN) is the non-profit news organization that operates Alhurra Television and Radio Sawa under a grant from the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). The objective of this project is to leverage the “Voltron” content management system (CMS) developed by MBN’s sister agency, Voice of America (VOA) which was launched in June 2019 for www.voanews.com.
THE REQUEST
MBN’s desire was to redesign their five properties using a new information architecture, revised taxonomy, and refreshed look and feel and have them migrated by the end of the calendar year. MBN needed to migrate from the Pangea CMS that is currently owned and operated by USAGM grantee Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In particular, the five properties to migrate as quickly as possible to the new platform were:
- https://www.alhurra.com
- https://www.elsaha.com
- https://www.radiosawa.com
- https://www.irfaasawtak.com
- https://www.maghrebvoices.com
In addition to the migration of the five sites, MBN had two mobile apps redeveloped from scratch as well as an MBN Intranet Site in Drupal 9.
OUR SOLUTION
Mobomo leveraged the investment that VOA had made over the past year and used the Voltron CMS as a foundation for the new MBN CMS. The Voltron platform provided a solid foundation for MBN to develop its next generation modern, user-friendly, engaging, digital properties. In particular, the Voltron platform had similar content types and workflow tailored to online video and audio-centric journalism, and our team developed automated migration scripts that were leveraged to migrate content from the existing MBN websites onto the new platform. This accelerated the development process and provided for the rapid migration and redesign of the new MBN digital properties.
THE VOLTRON PLATFORM
VOA wanted a new content management system that provided structure and flexibility to all its properties to help support effective journalism. Mobomo applied our user-centric design process of discovery, ideation, design, and validation. Delivering a drag and drop content management system that increased publication efficiency while providing customization of each new channel. Expanding the reading experience with new technologies and visual design, which we validated through user testing.
MBN utlilized the below four components of the Voltron platform for their five properties:
DRUPAL 8
Provides the key content management capabilities for authors and journalists. MBN can manage content centrally and have complete freedom and flexibility around where and how content is presented to users globally.
ACQUIA CLOUD SITE FACTORY
Serves as the multi-site platform to quickly build and create digital experiences globally while maintaining centralized platform governance, roles and permissions from a single user interface dashboard. Acquia Cloud Site Factory sits atop of the FEDRAMP compliant Acquia Cloud, leveraging it for its known security, scalability and performance characteristics. Acquia Cloud serves nearly 6 billion-page views a month across their customer base, ranging from NASDAQ to NBC Sports, to Charles Schwab, J&J, Pfizer, DOJ, the IRS and many others.
ACQUIA LIFT CONTENT HUB
Provides the Content Sharing Platform (CSP) to allow a single search interface across all five properties and enable content sharing across them. Content Hub breaks down the content silos and content duplication that existed across the USAGM networks and across multiple content management systems (Pangea, Plone).
KALTURA
As the VCMS, Kaltura’s Video Platform-as-a-Service (VPaaS) , provides live and on-demand video capabilities with unparalleled flexibility, modularity, extendibility, and ease of integration. Kaltura is open source and provides open APIs for video ingestion, transcoding, metadata management, distribution, publishing, engagement, and analytics
RESULTS.
Mobomo successfully launched the re-developed properties with the Voltron platform. The redesigned, next-generation sites are modern, user-friendly, and engaging. With similar content types and workflows, the process of migrating scripts to the new platform were simple and executed quickly. The overarching goal of migrating all five properties by the end of this year will be met without any delays.
The Mobomo team, also, redeveloped two high-performance mobile applications, Radio Sawa and Alhurra, for MBN available for iOS and Android. Designed to increase engagement and viewership with key audiences, Mobomo created an enhanced user experience including Drupal 8 integration, live radio streaming, live video streaming, profile personalization, and 508-compliance. Mobomo provided two mobile applications available in Arabic that allowed users to customize their profile and curate their app according to their listening and viewing preferences. Users are able to receive real-time push notifications of Radio Sawa and Alhurra topics of interest.
MBN was also provided mobile application development best practices and recommendations in maintaining and keeping the applications up-to-date.
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