the rise and fall of topics

The Rise and Fall and Rise of TOPICS Semantic Technology ConferenceJune 16, 2009Barbara McGlameryRachel Lovinger

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© 2009 Barbara McGlamery & Rachel Lovinger

IntroductionTime Inc Interactive•Early adopter of Semantic Web technologies•Used successfully in many redesigns of Time Inc. sites

The Price of Innovation•Steep learning curve•No one to learn from


Agenda

• How It Got Started

• Challenges

• Looking Forward

• Summary


How It Got Started

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EW.com’s Category ToolWhat we were trying to do•Standardize keywords•Update once, publish everywhere•Expose rich data relationships

Our Solution: Category Tool•Relational database•Controlled vocabulary•Hierarchical structure of terms•Defined relationships between categories•Precision search terms


Why it needed to be replaced•It wasn’t scalable •It couldn’t handle complex data relationships

EW.com’s Category Tool

79th Annual Academy AwardsOscars 2007 Common Name

Best Picture Best Actress

Helen Mirren

Babel

Letters from Iwo Jima

Nom

inee

s

Little Miss Sunshine

The QueenThe Departed

WinnerWinner N

omin

ees

Penelope Cruz

Judi Dench

Meryl Streep

Kate Winslet

Performance in Performance in

Performance in

Performance in

Performance in


Category Tool 2.0: The Next GenerationRequirements•Structured, controlled metadata•Relationships between data•Frequent updates•Integrated with CMS, for content tagging•Sharable, expandable, reliable

In late 2003 we met with a large group of stakeholders, and then as a smaller working group. We decided to build a new classification system based on RDF and OWL, and we decided to call it TOPICS.


TOPICS: The Next GenerationWhy semantic?•Based on forward-looking industry standard formats•Formats designed to express and efficiently read complex metadata•The power of inferencing

Why build instead of buy?•The tools we needed to integrate with a complex publishing process and CMS didn’t exist in 2003


TOPICS stands for…

TIME

ONTOLOGIES for

PUBLISHING,

INFERENCE,

CLASSIFICATION and

SEMANTICS

TIME

ONTOLOGIES for

PUBLISHING

INTELLIGENT

CONTENT

(SYSTEM)


Building TOPICSTiming•3 ½ months to define requirements and write specifications•8 months to build

Cost•Over $500K in capitalized cost (in real dollars about $1M)

Resources•3 people wrote the spec•2 people built it•Several others were involved in other ways


•AOL Home: (12/04)•Teen People: (1/05)•Real Simple: (2/05)•In Style: (7/05)

Launching the first sites


Challenges

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Types of Challenges We Faced

•Perception •Performance & Scalability•Business Development•Technical Development


Getting ApprovalIn late 2003 we had a meeting with all of the executive sponsors of our department.

•Business users explained their requirements and described current systems•Tech experts explained why current systems could not support the growing needs•All stakeholders agreed that a next generation system was needed

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No Executive SponsorWe had their blessing, but we had no executive sponsor.

• We checked in once when the specs were done• Again about 5 months into the build (functional, but not pretty)

We have done the “What is TOPICS and why do we need it?”

song and dance about 30 times in 5 years.


Lessons Learned

•Get an Executive Sponsor

•Check in often

•Let that person do your PR while you focus on the work


MyHomeIdeas GoalsRelaunch the AOL Home channel as a deep, easy-to-use and fulfilling source of home inspiration•Design Assistant – thousands of photos from a variety of Time Inc. magazines•Browse by room, room detail or solution•Refine results by style or publication


MyHomeIdeas: Only Photos Tagged


MyHomeIdeas: Meaningless Related Links


MyHomeIdeas: Bad Press (from inside)


Lessons Learned•Get involved with functionality discussions early to identify all the places where integration should happen

•Use realistic sample data in design comps

•A little knowledge can be dangerous - make sure that everyone on the team is fully filled in


Real Simple GoalsCreate a useful directory of Home Solutions•Browse by a range of categories•Meaningful related solutions•Website directory


Real Simple: Hard-coded Navigational Taxonomy


Real Simple: Difficulty Sharing


Lessons Learned• Don’t hardcode the taxonomy into a display template!

•Establish guidelines for shared metadata – what should be shared and what shouldn’t


InStyle GoalsShowcase the latest fashion products• Hierarchical browse of products• Meaningful related products• Discovery of new and trusted brands


InStyle: No Technical Specifications


InStyle: Slow to Retrieve and Sort Data

CMS TOPICS

Article

TemplateSearch Index

Article #123Brad Pitt


InStyle: Editors Reluctant to Tag

“Why should I tag if it doesn’t show up in search?”


Lessons Learned• Develop detailed technical specification

• Determine standards for template developers

• Reduce time spent processing complex queries

• Editorial training geared toward website functionality


Redesign EW.com•Enhance All About Pages•Boost interactivity with audience•Use additional technology to build audience (SEO, RSS, etc)•Create comprehensive media products database

EW.com Goals


EW.com: Simultaneous Large Projects


EW.com: Development Setting

DEV…..QA…. PROD

Too many chefsNew hardware

Instituted New Environments


EW.com: Move to TOPICS version 2.0


EW.com: Complex Data Migration


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EW.com: Too Much Data


EW.com: Scaled Down Dynamic Functionality


Lessons Learned• Solve scalability issues before migration

• Allow enough time and resources for development

• Don’t give up functionality that you consider essential to the site


Redesign People.com• Enhanced and automated Celebrity pages• News items classified by subject• Integration of archive with main site

People Goals


People: Simultaneous Large Projects


People: Shortsightedness


Lessons Learned•More thorough business development

•Solve scalability issues before migration

•Allow enough time for development


People mistakenly believed that TOPICS was a prototype

Other Challenges: Prototype

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Other Challenges: Search vs. Tagging

“Can’t we just get a better search engine and do all of this with unstructured content?”

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QA and Design had no easy way to look at the data in TOPICS

Other Challenges: No Visualization


Editors found it difficult to use

Other Challenges: User Interface


Other Challenges: Vision

All of the people who originated the project left the company. No one who was left had a big picture view of where the project was going. No one was strategizing about how it could be used across the organization.

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Lessons Learned•When the project launches, announce it

•Promote the benefits clearly and often

•Provide visualizations and easy-to-use interface

•Make sure someone is in charge of the vision


Looking Forward

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•Buy-in from Southern Living and SPC sites•Increased web traffic

Change of heart


Improved Perception•User tagging•Tagging Tool redesign•Proven functionality


•Additional hardware improved performance•Caching of TOPICS data in CMS allows quicker response times•Integration with new CMS

Enhanced Performance

Article

Template

Article #123Brad Pitt

TOPICS

TOPICS COPY

CMS

Search Index


•Establish executive sponsorship •Determine new uses•Enhance taxonomy management tools•Move to more semantically enabled database•Upgrade query language to SPARQL•More thorough integration with CMS and other systems

Where is it going next?


Summary

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Universal Challenges

•Executive sponsorship•Vision, business strategy•Scalability & RDF data storage issues•Efficiency of APIs•Guidelines for shared metadata•Robust, easy-to-use interface•Training and communications for business users•Standards for design, functional specs, implementation•Data migration


Thanks [email protected]

[email protected]

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the rise and fall of topics

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style orpublication

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