Beyond has just completed Google’s Connected Kingdom website. The site showcases findings from a report commissioned by Google from The Boston Consulting Group about how the internet is transforming the UK. Insights from The Connected Kingdom report show that the UK is the second largest online advertising market in the world, and that for every £1 imported the UK exports goods and services worth £2.80. (Wow, seriously impressive, go UK!)
Beyond delivered a website that illustrates the findings and invites discussion from the public on various topics such as helping consumers, internet access, and helping businesses. Academics and experts at the Oxford Internet Institute will use ideas and results from these discussions to help drive policy decisions and assist UK businesses.
How did we do it?
Beyond used the Google Moderator API to design and build the site, easily allowing the community to vote and participate in the series of topics. The new tool contains highly developed algorithms for determining popular questions and topics, and includes easy search functionality. The Google Moderator API eliminates the necessity to have a bespoke login system by incorporating Google’s oAuth platform. Beyond implemented a cloud based hosting solution due to a high level of expected traffic to the site. We delivered a seamless, fast and reliable user experiences by developing multiple load-balanced instances, a dedicated caching server and an optimized database platform.
How is it going?
According to Beyond’s Senior Digital Producer, Emma Downham, “It’s been great working with Google and the launch has gone really smoothly. We’re really pleased with the traffic the site has received so far with over 1,000 visitors in the first couple of hours. There has also been a huge response on Twitter which is brilliant.”
Brilliant indeed. Another successful Google project by the Beyond team. Find out more and get involved in the conversation by visiting the Connected Kingdom website.