Can Technology Innovation save The New York Times?

Location:

Grand Ballroom - Salon A/B/C/D

Abstract:

While most traditional media companies have been content to treat the Internet as merely another distribution medium and their IT departments as just one more service organization, The New York Times has embraced the digital age as fervently as the most progressive technology company. From a team of engineers who sit side-by-side with journalists in the newsroom and a well-funded R&D group to a large engineering team working on a slew of Web and mobile offerings, The Times has lived by the ethos that to continue to succeed, its technology must be as great as its journalism.

CIO Marc Frons will discuss a new philosophy that has borne fruit with a successful digital subscription model and fresh innovations in user engagement and interactive storytelling. But in a world of failing print economics and increased competition for online advertising, The Times must find new ways to make quality journalism profitable online.

CTO Rajiv Pant will relay experiences on their live transition to continuous delivery, give details on experimentation with emerging production frameworks with NodeJS and Scala, discuss their innovative directions on cloud and big data, and their unique philosophy and practice on current and future mobile apps.

Rajiv Pant

Rajiv Pant is Chief Technology Officer & VP at The New York Times. He supervises a staff of 250+, including the Vice Presidents of Web & Mobile Engineering, CMS & Publishing, and Ecommerce & Customer Service; the Directors of Business Intelligence, Quality, and Project Management; and The Editor of Interactive News Technology. Rajiv twice received the prestigious Knight Ridder Excellence Award for Technology Innovation. Among the products developed by Rajiv and his team is Cofax, a leading open-source content management system used by newspapers and other companies around the world. Xmultra, a systems integration product developed by his team for feeds transfer and transformation with multiple newspaper systems, won the Newspaper Association of America’s New Media Award. As a consultant, Rajiv has assisted organizations with technology leadership and product development. He founded a consulting company in the areas of enterprise software and open source development

Marc Frons

Marc Frons was named senior vice president and chief information officer of The New York Times Company in March 2012. He had served as chief technology officer of digital operations for The New York Times Media Group since 2006, where he was in charge of technology and product development for digital platforms. Mr. Frons led a major expansion in technology and product development at The Times, and played a principle role in devising and implementing the strategy and technology behind the Times’ successful Digital Subscriptions initiative the company’s mobile products. Mr. Frons started his career as a journalist, a background that gives him unique insight into the capabilities for digital publishers. He was a reporter and editor at Newsweek and a senior editor at BusinessWeek before leaving there in 1995 to start the financial Web site SmartMoney.com, where he held the title editor and chief technology officer. SmartMoney.com was an early pioneer in interactive journalism and data visualization, and won several awards for its innovative technology and design.