Authored by on Wednesday, May 15, 2013
In recent months, Greane Tree Technology has been working on high-profile, high-traffic web applications for clients. The resulting sites make extensive use of streaming video, social media integration, and responsive design.
Last fall, Complex Media asked Greane Tree Technology to build a video hub for its growing collection of exclusive short video properties. Complex Media is the brainchild of urban fashion designer and hip hop impresario Mark Ecko. Boasting over 60 million unique monthly visitors, the sites that make up Complex Media attract their primarily young, male visitors with original content on style, technology, and celebrities. Complex was named to this year’s AlwaysOn OnMedia 100 list of “top emerging companies … in the world of media, advertising, marketing, social commerce, branding, and public relations.”
Complex needed a web application that would fetch assets from the Ooyala video content management and analytics system, then display them in a stylish and user-friendly video portal or in widgets that could be deployed in other web properties. The software had to be built quickly to capitalize on trending content, but to withstand millions of views, it had to be built well.
To build clean code quickly, Greane Tree Technology worked with frameworks: Laravel for PHP, Backbone for Javascript, and Foundation for CSS and HTML. Mustache templates expedited the generation of dynamic HTML. JQuery and Underscore.js furnished libraries of useful functions. A Redis key-value store gave the web application quick access to video file directory information.
Following the Agile methodology, Greane Tree worked with Complex to prioritize features and deliver functionality in small, well-crafted increments. Within two months of project start, the dedicated video portal, complex.com/tv, was launched. Since launch, the videos have been receiving about a million views per month. Greane Tree Technology continues to make enhancements, such as new Twitter Player Cards to facilitate video sharing via social media.
Complex is only one of the clients for which Greane Tree Technology has created applications integrating video and social media and supporting a high volume of users on multiple platforms. We’re not yet at liberty to discuss the particulars of all our current work, but suffice it to say, the projects’ high profile and technological interest keep us motivated and keep our skills sharp. Greane Tree is always looking for more top-notch developers; contact Annmarie Lanesey if you are interested in joining our team.