News Feature

Belo Interactive Uses VelocIT to Spread the News

By Julie Hanson

February 01, 2003 — CIO — Just a few short years ago, when Dallas Morning News Senior Editor Kim Kirkham wanted to post a story on the paper?s website, the first thing she needed to do was to yell, ?I?m publishing!? to the entire newsroom staff, hoping that no one was filing a story at that same moment. If someone else was simultaneously publishing, the system could crash.

It was obvious to both business and technical leaders at Belo Interactive, the Internet subsidiary of news, cable and television conglomerate Belo, that this was not the most efficient Internet strategy. Thus was born VelocIT, a system that centralizes all content, manages its distribution throughout the 24 Belo Interactive websites, has Web-hosting capabilities and was awarded an honorable mention by the Enterprise Value Awards judges. Before VelocIT, what appeared on one Belo Interactive site sat in its own silo, unable to be distributed to sister sites with ease. With VelocIT, once a piece of content enters the system, whether a story, photo or a new car listing in the classified section, that content can be routed or pulled out of the system by any Belo Interactive employee with just a few clicks?and then posted online.

The resourcefulness of this content management system, which includes legacy software as the system?s main structure, is what got the attention of this year ?s judges. Enterprise Value Awards judge Doug Barker says he was impressed with Belo Interactive?s ability to take a simple foundational piece and build a complex, efficient system, calling VelocIT ?slick and powerful.? The Key Is ContentAt first, Belo Interactive IT leaders stumbled on the way to finding a solution. They knew that in order to succeed they needed to aggregate their content, share it companywide and do that efficiently, but they weren?t sure exactly how. One of their first attempts, a $2.8 million outsourced Web-based classified publishing system, failed after a year and half because it could not handle the volume of content and data. Belo Interactive executives then decided to build their own solution.

The first step in doing so was to inventory their internal systems, which were spread throughout 20 locations and were, in some instances, 20 years old. Ripping out networks nationwide to replace them with shiny new servers was not only financially impractical but something Belo?s employees would likely balk at. Executives knew that in order to develop a system that would work and be cost-effective, they needed to start from the content and work up from there, using their in-house systems as a base.

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