DTI wants everyone in the pool with new content app

By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor

Newspapers now have another tool to oversee content slated for multiple channels with the release last month of MediaPool, a content management app that handles both print and online data on the same server.

Digital Technology International Chief Executive Officer Don Oldham said MediaPool, introduced at last month’s IfraExpo, will let newspapers freely earmark content as needed, from print to Web radio.

“MediaPool is a content management system that doesn’t have boundaries between print and Web or even between new channels,” Oldham said. “When we talk about the Web, that’s usually not one channel. It’s possibly on the Internet or mobile, Web TV or Web radio.”

The Register-Guard in Eugene, Ore., is the first newspaper to integrate MediaPool CMS into its operation. The paper expects to roll out the app later this year in conjunction with a major upgrade of its editorial and advertising software.

Engine for apps

MediaPool is the content management engine for several DTI apps, including AdSpeed, ClassSpeed, NewsSpeed and WebSpeed.

The app is based on InterSystems Corp.’s Cache database software, a high-performance object database InterSystems claims can retrieve information five times faster than relational databases.

“This database uses a multidimensional array and even though it’s a single pool of data, it can be physically distributed across servers and even across geographic locations,” said Oldham, explaining the benefits of InterSystems’ approach.

Parent and child approach

MediaPool uses a hierarchical method to manage data, with a “parent” record and any number of “child” records linked together in the database.

“You have to have children because you may need a high-resolution photographs for print, but a low-resolution version for the Web,” Oldham said.

“Instead of having two separate photos with separate names that have to be updated in the system, they exist as one photo with different versions that show up as a thumbnail.”

MediaPool is also capable of overseeing user-generated content, a benefit to newspapers that solicit community input on their Web sites.

“Typically, that content isn’t in the regular workflow and has to be treated and handled separately,” Oldham said. “But the MediaPool architecture allows all of that user-generated material to come into the pool of content and be treated” like newsroom-generated content.

Meantime, DTI released a new version of WebSpeed, integrating the app with Adobe Systems Inc.’s Dreamweaver software.

WebSpeed’s suite of applications includes SpeedWriter, eWriter and Escenic Content Studio. SpeedWriter and eWriter let users create stories in a format that can be immediately published to the Web or onto layouts for print publications.

DTI has had a longstanding relationship with Adobe, integrating InDesign and InCopy within its software offerings.

“What we did with InDesign is we made it into a multi-user collaborative system and not just a single-user page layout program like it comes shrink wrapped,” Oldham said. “What we’ve added to Dreamweaver are dynamic tags so that a designer can lay out pages but put in the content tags, which will update directly out of the MediaPool database.”

The tags will thus allow users to automatically update their Web site hundreds of times per day without having to go back and manually edit the sites, Oldham said.

DTI said it also plans to incorporate Adobe Media Player into its apps at a later date.