Telecoms.com is considered to be the telecoms industry’s leading news, opinion and analysis website. It is produced by the Telecoms & Media group within Informa plc – a major operator in the information business with over 8000 staff in over 40 countries.

Thanks to Interconnect IT’s significant WordPress skills and extensions, coupled with the system’s ease of use, it was quickly decided that this open source software would be an excellent fit for the requirements that Informa Telecoms & Media had listed. These ranged from support for multiple contributors with varying access rights, tagging, category templates, sections and so on.

The added functionality that Interconnect IT brings to WordPress, including a multitude of news specific widgets, quick and easy section page creation and so on helped create a highly flexible website that can easily grow without a need to repeatedly involve the developers. This strength helps to give Telecoms.com an advantage in being able to quickly respond to changes in the business environment they work with.

Matt Horsford, Head of New Media at Informa Telecoms & Media said “Interconnect IT were one of the few people in the UK able to deliver WordPress functionality to the level we required. The project ran smoothly and we were impressed at the way Interconnect IT understood and executed our requirements with very little need to make further changes.”

The visual design of the site was carried out by Coast Digital.

Media Orientated WordPress

Interconnect IT believe that WordPress’s underlying structure, coupled with the correct theme and our own custom plugin set makes for a platform that is excellent for media outlets such as Informa. David Coveney, Director of Interconnect IT said “The semantic and chronological structure of WordPress content was originally designed for blogging, but it also perfectly matches the needs of media organisations who have a lot of news to present. The wide range of ways in which media can be presented, coupled with the multitude of RSS feeds available makes for an immersive, high performing news website.”

WordPress is currently used by many large media groups for blogging, with some starting to exploit its power for news websites. The largest growth sector for WordPress is likely to be in news websites for both small and large organisations. Early adopters such as the New York Times, CNN and our own clients at Politics & The City (run by June Sarpong MBE) have shown the real benefits in using this technology. Telecoms.com have shown great foresight in adopting WordPress for their own site and should gain another advantage over their competition.

Willows Mallorca are a Mallorca based property management company who came to us over two years ago for a budget site.  They’d taken over the company but the web presence they inherited wasn’t suitable.  The site we created then was basic, but carefully built and with good search engine performance – in fact, the results were remarkable.  Willows Mallorca have since grown to a team of seven staff, with a showroom office, and high-flying clients.  It’s been estimated that as much as 70% of their work came through their website.

Following that kind of performance, it’s no surprise that they wanted to stay with us!  Our belief in high quality along with great value mean we very rarely lose a client.

Well, with the Olympics diverting the world’s attention, Russia stepped up hostilities. The attacks on the city of Gori aren’t really that far from where our clients are in the capital, Tbilisi. And it’s weird. We’ve worried about clients going bust (happened twice already in the company’s history) and we’ve worried about clients that are undergoing upheavals. But we’ve never worried about them being in danger of military actions. And that’s an altogether different feeling.

So here at Interconnect IT we’re wishing all the best to our Georgian friends, and following the blog of their British team leader Helene Ryding. It’s an interesting insight into what it is to be in a country that’s under attack.

It’s still early days for the project, but one thing I immediately did… I told my girlfriend! After all, how else could I explain why I’d been poking around escort agency websites! I feel she suspects it’s just a cover. Working late, or trips away, could well be viewed with suspicion from now on….