Structuring and retrieving largeamounts of data and content is a headache for many companies. When Otavamedia decided to modernise and unify the search functionality of its online services, it turned to the experts at Fluentia.
If the long-standing media house Otavamedia Oy itself is not familiar to all Finns, its brands are. Otavamedia publishes more than 22 magazines, and its multi-channel brands include Anna, Kotiliesi, Tekniikan Maailma and Suomen Kuvalehti. Interesting and consumer-serving content is at the heart of Otavamedia's operations, and continuous renewal is part of its mission. As part of this renewal and to create more efficient, user-friendly services, Otavamedia invited Fluentia's experts to help create a new search function. Of course, the most important thing was to make it easier for Otavamedia's users to find content of interest to them among a large amount of material.
First, with the help of Fluentia's experts, we set out to define the structure of the content and the appropriate data model. Otavamedia has a long history, and content has been both created and digitised over time. The challenge was to find a common model for the diverse data and to define what data the search function needed and what made sense for the user. Elasticsearch was chosen as the underlying system for the search function.
Together with Fluentia, an interface was created to allow data to be imported and indexed, as well as a separate middle layer for the search function itself. The interface can be used to implement many different search views, and the search layer takes care of the necessary technical complexity. For example, content can now be searched by topic: if a user wants to search for suitable content only among recipes from a particular magazine or among boat articles under all brands, this can be done more efficiently.
The new search function will give both old and new content better and more targeted visibility. In addition, the search function will support the media industry's hot topic of paid content, which will appear in search results alongside free content.
The new search function will also make life easier for Otavamedia's employees and journalists, as articles will be easier to find.
- Fluentia found excellent solutions to both small and big problems, and the collaboration ran efficiently and on time," says Riku Österlund, Head of Design and Technology at Otavamedia. "Our users have been asking for a better search function for a long time, and I am pleased that we can finally offer them one.
