Today more than ever, businesses attempt to remain agile and constantly seek modern solutions that are cost-efficient and highly effective. Like any other business, newspapers aren’t married to technology and need to stay flexible enough to switch out one system for another – whether the purpose is to cut costs, do more with fewer resources or update their solutions according to the latest technological trends.
Choosing the right solution can be a daunting task, whether a news organization already has extensive experience with a live-publishing or live-blogging platform or is just getting started with it.
What are the options for publishing platforms?
As with most software, there are three main routes a news company can go for:
In this blog post, we examine each option for live blogging or live publishing strategies and weigh the advantages and limitations that come with each approach.
Developing a solution in-house puts the internal team in control and allows a solution that perfectly fits your current needs. Isn’t that ideal? But what happens to your self-built solution in 2,3, or 4 years down the line? It builds up a technical debt, meaning that at some point in the future costs will be involved to update and maintain this solution. To alleviate this technical debt, news and media companies will need to take time away from their focus and core strengths to maintain, fix bugs, and ensure compatibility with other changing pieces of their tech stack. Additionally, if the solution has to continue being a perfect fit for the company’s needs, maintenance won’t be enough – technical improvements, R&D, and scalability will have to occur in order for the business to keep up with operational requirements. In short, media companies will also need to keep up with technological innovation and market trends.
The alternative is, of course, outsourcing. This has several advantages:
Now that we have examined the option of in-house development, let’s have a look at external expertise.
A “one-stop shop” is a vendor that offers a range of software solutions that cater to several needs. The main advantage of choosing a “one-stop shop” vendor is that it simplifies the procurement process and reduces the number of vendors a company needs to manage.
In many cases, however, these solutions don’t integrate well with other solutions. The main value is that all business needs are being addressed by just one solution, hence one-shop-stop vendors place less emphasis on interoperability and integrations with other solutions.
Another drawback is that this approach may lead to compromises in terms of expertise, innovation, and deep value-adding features. These holistic solutions meet many needs and solve many problems, but due to their nature of covering a certain quantity of needs, they have to compromise on some feature qualities.
A “best-in-class” vendor focuses on providing a top-notch solution for a specific function, need, or business process while focusing on integrations and interoperability. To quote a telling insight from an INMA article:
“This approach involves building a suite of tools and processes that can be mixed and matched, and possibly switched in and out with other solutions, including third parties. It’s much easier to A/B test solutions without committing to a whole new suite of tools, which is a huge upside for organisations as they can be more flexible with their integrations.” Source: Jodie Hopperton, 2023, INMA Blog
There are several advantages to selecting a best-in-class solution:
In conclusion, different media company needs will dictate which one of the above-mentioned approaches will be more suitable for them. While a “one-stop-shop” solution offers convenience, a “best-in-class” solution will provide specialized and advanced solutions for specific requirements and greater functionality.
If you’re looking for a top-notch live publication software that empowers small teams to achieve big things, get in touch with us today!
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