Custom CMS and Single-Page Radio Website

Problem

The biggest radio station in the country wanted a new website with a CMS that its own staff could run. It had to support campaigns, polls and other features, and each of them had to be easy to change. Most of all, people had to be able to listen to the live stream and browse the site at the same time, without the sound ever stopping.

Approach

• I designed the whole system and decided to build it in C#.
• I built the first prototype of the CMS myself.
• I made the front end a single page, so a visitor could click through the site while the radio kept playing.
• I chose which features went into the CMS, such as campaigns and polls, together with the client.
• I hired more developers for the project. I picked the candidates, and a few of them were my former students.
• I led the team and checked their work, because the CMS was my design.

Architecture and design decisions

• The site worked as a single page application. The player stayed loaded while the content around it changed.
• The CMS was custom made for this client and not built on an existing product.
• I wrote the backend in C#. The front end used JavaScript with Backbone.js.
• Campaigns, polls and other features were separate parts of the CMS, so the client could use them without help from a developer.

Outcomes

• The station got a CMS made for its needs, with a website that never interrupted the stream.
• The client was happy with the result, which helped the agency's name and brought in new customers.
• The project grew the development team, and I trained the new people.
• It became the base for later CMS work at the agency.

Known gaps

• I have no numbers on listeners, page views or how many editors used the CMS.
• I do not describe how the live stream itself was delivered, since that was not my part.
• The page does not say how the data was stored or how the system was hosted.
• The system is no longer online, so I cannot link to it.