Project LargoA Responsive WordPress Framework

for News Websites

Adam Schweigertaschweigert@gmail.comTwitter: @aschweig

Me• Currently:

– Director of Technology for the Investigative News Network

– Founder of my own consultancy, Media Toybox– Learning to play banjo

• Previously: – Director of Strategy at Mindset Digital– Director of Digital at WOSU Public Media (NPR/PBS)– Director of Digital at Indiana Public Media (NPR/PBS)– Grad school at Indiana University– Undergrad at Ohio State

Email: aschweigert@gmail.comTwitter: @aschweig

“We, representatives of nonprofit news organizations, gather at a

time when investigative reporting, so crucial to a

functioning democracy, is under threat. There is an urgent need

to nourish and sustain the emerging investigative

journalism ecosystem to better serve the public.”

— The Pocantico Declaration, 2009

Today: 86 Members

Today: 86 Members

http://InvestigativeNewsNetwork.org

The Problem

• Many members have little or no dedicated technology resources

• INN wants to help but we’re a small organization

• Not feasible to provide one-on-one help to every member

• Most members have websites, but…

http://LargoProject.orghttp://github.com/inn/largo

Our Solution: Project Largo

Project Largo

• WordPress-based– Used by more and more major news

sites– Large, active community–Many third party plugins– Easy to learn– Fast and (relatively) inexpensive to

develop

Project Largo

• WordPress-based• Optimized for News Publishers

Project Largo

• WordPress-based• Optimized for News Publishers• Responsive Design – Looks great on

any device

Project Largo

• WordPress-based• Optimized for News Publishers• Responsive design – Looks good on

any device• Easy to setup, customize and extend

Benefits

• For Publishers– Dramatically reduce cost of developing and launching a website– Remove technical barriers to allow you to focus on content

• For Readers– Clean, fast-loading, beautiful reading experience on any device

• For Developers– A robust toolkit for building news websites

• For INN– Framework allows us to build and launch sites quickly and

provide better support to our members– Common backend enables new distribution and content

syndication possibilities– When INN (or a member) builds a new feature we’re better able

to share with the entire network

Where We Are(~1 Year into the project)

• About 20 sites in our network using Largo• Around 20 non-INN sites (that we know of) using the open

source version• Upcoming first “public” release of the Largo framework

– Design improvements– Custom landing page for projects– More flexibility for article page layouts– Better tools for customizing the look of a Largo site

(without having to touch the code)• Working on better documentation• Soon: new “magazine” theme optimized for Longform

Contribute!

Download or fork Largo on Github: http://github.com/inn/largo(Plugins other themes, etc. at: http://github/inn)

Use Largo in your own projectContribute Code (or documentation)

Get in Touchaschweigert@gmail.com(or: largo@investigativenewsnetwork.org)

Questions?Adam Schweigert

aschweigert@gmail.comTwitter: @aschweig

Project Largohttp://LargoProject.org

Github: http://github.com/inn/largoTwitter: @LargoProject

Investigative News Networkhttp://InvestigativeNewsNetwork.org

Twitter: @INN