Navigation Bar Home Products Partners Services Portfolio News
border image border image
transparent spacer image border image
transparent spacer image transparent spacer image transparent spacer image
Return to List
Web Site Portal and Content Management System 
Area of Technology: Web Site Portal and Content Management System  
Company Name: LA.com 
Website URL: www.la.com 
Overview of Business: LA.com is the insider’s guide to Los Angeles. The service was developed by MediaNews Group’s California Newspapers Partnership (www.medianewsgroup.com), which also includes Gannett (www.gannett.com), and Stephens Media Group (www.stephensmedia.com). MediaNews Group is the seventh largest newspaper publisher in the nation with a significant presence in Los Angeles.  
Description of Problem: LA.com wanted to increase the number of visitors to the portal. To accomplish this, they wanted to develop interesting new forms of content, restructure the existing content, and make the site more responsive. 
GVC Role: Originally, GVC added one senior developer to the existing LA.com project providing senior development experience and skills. This role included consultation for the other develop team members and to perform assigned tasks in a timely fashion.

Further into the project, GVC added another staff member to the existing team providing an additional developer at the intermediate level. 
Project Description: Enhance an existing portal and Content Management system during site restructuring, including addition of significant new functionality and aggressive optimization of identified system bottlenecks. The tools utilized included WebObjects, CVS, xCode (Apple IDE), Eclipse, Subversion (svn), OpenBase, Apache, OS X.  
Description of Solution:  
Project Deliverables:
  • identify bottlenecks and optimize though algorithm choice and creative use of caching
  • identify and eliminate code causing excessive memory usage
  • translate visual, oral, and written specifications into designs and working prototypes
  • provide feedback to editorial and design team on impact and cost of changes being considered
  • develop production implementations based on prototypes
  • deployment and management of deployed applications
  • provide ongoing product support