Ratio partners with Next Issue Media to help them reach a goal of 1 million subscribers

Opportunity

Next Issue Media is an independent media venture founded in 2009 by five of the major global publishing houses (Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst, News Corp., and Time) to translate their paperback magazines to the mobile and digital world. Being early to launch on Windows 8, Next Issue Media has the opportunity to establish itself as THE premier magazine offering on the Windows 8 platform and build a competitive edge against its competitors.

Situation

Next Issue Media’s unlimited magazine subscriptions service originally launched on the Android platform where there are currently 36 magazine titles available to subscribers.  Next Issue Media also has an iPad app with over 80 titles available. Ratio was asked to assist in creating a compelling experience that leverages the unique features of Windows 8 while supporting the company’s goals.

Results

Ratio was selected as the Windows 8 agency by Next Issue to design and develop the new Windows 8 app.  The result is an magazine app that is optimized for tablets and desktops presenting the impressive quality and quantity of digital magazine content on Windows 8. The Windows 8 version of the app offers users personalized options to pin their favorite titles to their start screens, a feature unique to the Windows 8 app.  Once in the app, users experience a spacious new library layout, which also features recent back issues.  Users can also take advantage of multitasking with snap view, and live tiles with rotating covers of the latest issues.

NIM’s new Windows app now gives customers the choice to seamlessly access their subscriptions  from their tablet at home, to their laptop on the road, or to their company PC at work.  This beautiful app brings incredible value to Windows 8 customers, allowing users nlimited all you can read access to over 85 magazines including titles like Time, Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker, and Cosmopolitan to name just a few.   With this new market multiplying their customer base several fold, NIM has positioned itself towards its goal of reaching 1 million customers in the next 18 months.

Allrecipes Video Cookbook / iOS

Opportunity

All good cooking apps require recipes.  Allrecipes already has an existing successful iOS app that pulls in its traditional recipe content from Allrecipes.com.  We wanted to create a better way to present recipes and cooking videos. Tall order but when you experience the Allrecipes Video Cookbook app for iOS, we think you’ll agree – it is better.

Solution

The Allrecipes Video Cookbook was created offering optimized UI for both the iPad and iPhone. The application leverages content through a web service so its always updateable and fresh. On the iPad you’ll note that the app offers a very unique navigation model for the videos that really sets the application apart. Each recipe preparation step is tied to its place in the video. As the video plays each step text is highlighted, these step numbers are also navigation. By simply touching one step you jump to that part of the video, no need to “scrub” to find that part again. The app also includes ingredients, step-by step instructions, and reviews of the recipe from the Allrecipes community, but the real beauty is in navigating the recipes thru beautiful video.  The recipes are grouped in categories and searchable for easy selection, with over 700 recipes to choose from you’re sure to find something great to prepare.

Result

Using Allrecipes top recipes professionally produced as videos, the Video Cookbook offers a different approach that guides users thru recipes through watching videos. Once you try it, you’ll wonder why it hasn’t been done before. What’s incredible is that the app is FREE, with more video recipes added all the time, this app is set to be a staple on your iPad or iPhone for a long time to come.

iCookbook™ / Windows 8

Opportunity

Develop a premier app experience for the Worldwide introduction of Windows 8 by creating a re-imagined UX/UI of the existing successful iCookbook™ iOS and Android app to extend iCookbook™ into a new potentially huge market.

Solution

We started by immersing ourselves in the Metro Design language, as one of a select few “Window’s 8 Agencies” partnering with Microsoft we had great access to their Design and Engineering teams which enabled us to quickly begin the process of ideating and creating the Windows 8 iCookbook™ experience. We built the Win8 version of iCookbook™ using HTML and JS and delivered in time for the introduction of Windows 8 @ Mobile World Congress on Feb 29th, 2012.

Results

iCookbook™ was showcased at the MWC event (check it out here and jump to 18:44) and received tons of great press including the New York Times, Forbes, and much more. We are continuing to advance the app as we look to the Market Release of Windows 8 with new features and more content, look for it later this year.

Allrecipes Video Cookbook / Windows 8

Opportunity

Allrecipes wanted to launch on both iOS AND Windows 8. This was a tremendous opportunity: create compelling, highly performant app experiences for both platforms with interfaces that were specific to each.

Allrecipes selected the most popular recipes from its amazing collection of user generated recipes to become professionally produced videos. The content is really impressive and deserved to be its own application. Ratio wanted to create a compelling interface that differentiated from other video content apps.

Solution

Allrecipes provided the great content so we had to create a compelling experience where the content was the hero. After listening to the allrecipes team about their customers and reviewing the videos, we came up with an idea to connect the Directions that accompany every recipe to the specific part of each video.  We then added a navigation control that lets users jump from one Direction Step to another, moving the user to the respective part of the video.

Results

A better way to engage in Video Recipes! Users will really enjoy the new navigation model while learning how to prepare the best of Allrecipes content if they are using a Windows 8 device, iPhone or iPad.

Parents / Windows 8

Opportunity

Create the “go-to” app for Parents as they experience pregnancy and their childs first 2 years.

Solution

Parents, a Meredith Property, has incredible information and resources for parents, we wanted to create an experience that showcased the content and presented it in a unique and interesting way.  As every parent knows, you start measuring your pregnancy in weeks and then following birth the clock starts again. This measure of time is the backdrop for how we present the content in the app, each week offers the most important information with great photos for parents from “Pregnancy to Toddler”. To personalize the experience users are asked to offer their projected due date or child’s birthday which then brings the parent to their “current week” making it easy to stay up to date with their current stage.

Results

Ratio has really enjoyed working with the Parents team to create an engaging and valuable Windows 8 application. “We were excited to partner with Ratio for this project. Their experience with Windows 8 development, insights into its innovation, and the quality of their team were second to none”, offered Todd Tarpley, GM of Digital for Parents Network, “Windows 8 is innovative and well suited to our audience of mobile millennial moms. We’re extremely proud of the quality of our ‘Pregnancy & Baby Guide’ app, and very excited to be part of the Windows 8 family at launch.”

Conde Nast / Windows 8

Opportunity

Condé Nast wanted to bring its incredible lineup of brands to the launch of Windows 8 and selected Ratio to make it happen. In turn, Ratio wanted to set the standard for digital magazines on Windows 8.Condé Nast needed to publish a series of over 18 apps across its great brands in time for the launch of Windows 8 that leverage custom versions of its magazine content without changing its publishing process.

Solution

To meet this goal, Ratio needed to create a platform to consume the digital content packages for each brand and deliver a series of apps that would present the interactive magazine content while adhering to the Windows 8 Design guidelines.

Results

A tremendous reading experience on Windows 8 across 18 apps released for the launch of Windows 8. The incredible list of apps include: Vanity Fair, GQ, The New Yorker, Wired, Vogue, Bon Appétit, Glamour, Self, Lucky, Allure, Golf Digest, Architectural Digest, Condé Nast Traveler, Epicurious, Domino, and Brides Magazine.

iCookbook™ / iOS

Opportunity

Build an application to engage recipes on the iPad. PIL needed a new way to find, choose, and prepare recipes. They leveraged a team of food experts and came to us with over 2,000 recipes with photography, recipe details, and easy to follow preparation steps.

Solution

Create a unique and ground-breaking cookbook application. Ratio did this by designing a rich visual interface to find and filter through 2,000 recipes, add their own, scale ingredients using a built in scale feature in selected recipes, create shopping list with an easy to use shopping list feature in which enables a user to scale ingredients, add their own ingredients, and build lists using any selected recipe. Also included was the option to share recipes via email and Facebook. Another feature was to include integration with AirPrint so a user can print a recipe and shopping list wirelessly from their iPads. The biggest feature that set this product apart from similar applications was the Voice Command feature in Prepare mode, using voice commands that users can step through when preparing a recipe “hands-free” and keep their screens clean.

Results

Created a beautiful, unique application for people to find great new meal ideas and recipes with a must-have application. Set a new standard in recipe and cookbook applications for the iOS platform.

Publications

iCookBook™ Brings Voice Commands to Recipes on iPad
iCookbook™: An elegant, voice controlled cookbook for iPad
Macworld 2011: iCookbook™ demo with Mike and Kelly
iCookbook™ on NBC Chicago’s Weekend Web

RealNetworks / MTV – Film.com

Opportunity

RealNetworks asked Ratio to help support the management and evolution of Film.com, an end-to-end business unit of RealNetworks focused on publishing TV & Movie content to the world. Seeking to fulfill on the massive business opportunity of traffic generation and widening user base, Real’s management team looked to Ratio as a trusted partner to provide the additional support required to move the needle on this opportunity. Working alongside Real to fulfill on the vision, Ratio provided the strategic insight, planning, and execution of a better end-to-end infrastructure that could extend to more users, generating traffic across wider audiences and multiple screens.

Solution

Ratio passionately plugged in with RealNetworks to re-imagine an end user experience that would make the content king in an enjoyable and usable manner, but also available to more users across platforms and screens. Not only did we deliver an improved end user experience across web and mobile, but we are able to solve Real’s pain points around a limited multi-discipline publishing process across their editorial, marketing, creative and technology teams. Delivering a manageable and sustainable CMS publishing platform that would support the end-to-end business workflows that were integral to Real’s operations, but also enhancing those processes to improve the efficiency of their teams.

Results

Ratio partnered with Real to provide the strategic insight to grow Film.com into a high content website reaching a larger audience, and increasing user engagement across multiple platforms and screens, while supporting Real’s cross-disciplinary publishing, business, marketing and technology teams’ needs. In May 2012 MTV NextMovie announced the acquisition of Film.com, including this property as part of it’s digital strategy at NextMovie’s parent company, Viacom’s Music and Logo Group.

T-Mobile / ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION PLATFORM

Opportunity

T-Mobile’s R&D Creation Center group’s charter is to ideate and innovate ideas that would evolve and drive T-Mobile into the future – by being the first step in generating the ideas that go from prototype to product offerings. The Creation Center group’s infrastructure limited their passionate and creative methodologies – ultimately the group did not have tools that helped them manage their day-to-day ideation and corporate management of their IP. Focusing in on collaboration and connection to produce ideas, their ideation methods included drawings, sticky notes, whiteboard sessions, brainstorming sessions, etc. to produce the real ideas that would evoke change. But there was no method to centrally store and organize those ideas, so those valuable IP and future business intelligence was getting lost and was detrimental to the growth and evolution of T-Mobile as a whole.

Solution

Ratio dove into the Creation Center’s day to day workflow, understanding their methodologies and needs, as well as the business enterprise needs for corporate memory and business intelligence as a whole. The group’s importance to T-Mobile was key, and making their team efficient was a key focus of Ratio’s approach. T-Mobile’s infrastructure tools were limiting, and rather than throw everything away Ratio was able to leverage existing tools but still provide a brand new interface that integrated into their creative processes in an non-interruptive manner, but also enhanced their day to day processes to be more efficient, enjoyable, and useful – ultimately allowing them to innovate more and make an impact to T-Mobile’s business as whole.

Results

T-Mobile had a wide selection of partners and platforms available to address this business need, but ultimately selected Ratio as a partner to listen and provide a solution that met not only the Creative Center group’s individual and team needs, but meet the corporate level goals that they expected. Ratio delivered a digital platform that secured corporate memory, IP and asset management, and future business intelligence.

iCookbook™ / Windows 8

Opportunity

Develop a premier app experience for the Worldwide introduction of Windows 8 by creating a re-imagined UX/UI of the existing successful iCookbook iOS and Android app to extend iCookbook into a new potentially huge market.

Solution

We started by immersing ourselves in the Metro Design language, as one of a select few “Window’s 8 Agencies” partnering with Microsoft we had great access to their Design and Engineering teams which enabled us to quickly begin the process of ideating and creating the Windows 8 iCookbook experience. We built the Win8 version of iCookbook using HTML and JS and delivered  in time for the introduction of Windows 8 at Mobile World Congress on Feb 29th, 2012.

Results

iCookbook was showcased at the MWC event (check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_aQlDPJvnQ and jump to 18:44) and received tons of great press including the New York Times, Forbes, and much more. We are continuing to advance the app as we look to the Market Release of Windows 8 with new features and more content, look for it later this year.

RealNetworks Unifi

Opportunity:

RealNetworks came to us for aiding in the development of a multimedia-centric cloud service that will aggregate your photos, music, and video files from multiple devices and online services. They wanted a single online interface for organizing and accessing content that was available in the mainstream.

Solution:

Ratio took the vision of RealNetworks and created a rich, easy-to-use interface with accessibility from multiple devices via an internet connection and Unifi account. This was done by developing an interface in which a user will log into and access all of their synced devices under one multimedia library.

Results:

Unifi expands this service to the general public, recently awarded with CNET’s “Best of CES” award for software, services, and applications.

Publications:

• CES: RealNetworks attempts to Unifi the cloud
• RealNetworks Press Room: RealNetworks Previews Unifi
• PC Mag: RealNetworks Unveils Unifi

Visible Technologies / SOCIAL MONITORING PLATFORM

Opportunity

Visible is the leader in social media monitoring, analytics, and services for enterprises globally. Visible’s award-winning technology and expertise helps businesses analyze social media conversations to better understand consumer preferences, market dynamics, competitive strengths and weaknesses, and other information critical to a company’s reputation and brands. Visible is the solution of choice for many Forbes Global 2000 companies in a variety of industries including financial services, pharmaceutical, automotive, consumer products, retail, travel and hospitality, telecom, technology, and agencies.

Visible Technologies approached Ratio to help incubate and launch their digital technology offerings in 2005. Ratio became an important partner, helping the company grow from 2 founders to over 100 employees and over $50 million in investments. Ratio’s application of product strategy, creative and technical expertise helped launch Visible’s two flagship products that is the core of Visible’s business today.

Solution

Ratio was involved in the concept, design, and development (from IA, to UX and UI) of Visible Technologies Flagship product, TruView, which allows a customer to gain control of their reputation online in the major search engines via displacement of unfavorable content with desirable content. TruView is an application suite which has scoring, management, administration, and reporting. Development of TruView led to the creation of TruCast, a social listening platform, which provides actionable business intelligence, enabling enterprises to implement social media strategies across their organizations and more actively engage with customers online.

Results

Ratio helped incubate these key digital technologies, working alongside with Visible from concept to full launch of these products, but also helping shape Visible to a key innovator and thought leader in social engagement.

Prototypes of both TruView and TruCast attracted venture capital firms WPP and Ignition Partners to help raise $42 million, which fueled the companies continued growth.  Trucast went on to be named the “Commercial Product or Service of the Year” at the 2009 Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) Industry Achievement Awards.

Both TruView and TruCast are flagship products core to what Visible Technologies is today, and continue to evolve and continued success.

Mindbloom / THE LIFE GAME

Opportunity

Build an online platform optimized to support people making lasting change in their lives. The goal of the game is to help motivate people to live healthier and more balanced lives. Players grow the life they want and the game rewards them as they take steps towards achieving their goals.

Solution

Ratio worked with Mindbloom to accelerate their go to market plans via product strategy, product management, creative user experience and engineering. Understanding Mindbloom’s history and how they got to where they were was key. What were the critical challenges that they were facing preventing them from launching? What were the obstacles that they were going to face once they launched? Ratio immediately absorbed, digested, and integrated collaboratively with Mindbloom to unify as a team to make immediate impact – overcoming technical challenges, defining an award-winning user experience, and going to market in accelerated time.

Results

Mindbloom had a compelling offering to the world, providing a medium to increase positivity through gamification, social and community impact. Ratio was able to provide strategic, creative and technical services, not as a service company but as a trusted partner and Mindbloom team member, helping them to get over the spinning cycles, get across the finish line, and deliver an award-winning experience to the world. The Mindbloom Life Game product has received multiple awards in web gamification experiences and innovative health and life management tools.

Links:

• Mindbloom: About
• Q13: Mindbloom
• TechFlash: Mindbloom

AT&T Olympics Application

Click here for more images

Opportunity: Create an iPhone application that enables winter Olympics fans to experience the games with their iPhone, whether onsite in Canada, or in their own countries rooting for their native athletes from afar.

Solution: Defined and developed information architecture, user experience, and user interface, which accounted for numerous countries/languages, large volume of events and locations, as well as multimedia elements. The application delivered more than 2,000 events over the 17 days of the Olympic Games, combining schedule listings, news, photos, and videos. It also adjusted for time zones to deliver the most relevant content.

Results: More than 1 million downloads.

Links:

• MacWorld: AT&T Olympics App
• Into Mobile: AT&T Olympics App