RB
I started as co-director of
innovation at BBG about three
years ago. At the time there was a
minor, but smart investment. We
were spending less than a million
dollars on the technology platforms
for mobile, in a $750m organisation.
But it was a smart investment
because the organisation focuses on
separate mobile websites, which was
ahead of the curve. The organisation
said, “We’re only going to spend a
little bit of money. Where’s the
most effective place to do that?”
The second thing that happened
was that Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty came out with a mobile
application that was tied into its
content management system in a
pretty smart way. They led the pack
in developing a separate mobile app.
One of my goals was to invest in
mobile as a much broader platform.
We took the first step by bringing
Will Sullivan onboard. He was
absolutely the critical thinker for us
about the future of mobile. We’re
still continuing to transition. I’d say
overall, we’re continuing to
embrace mobile in a significant
way, but we have a lot more to go
to become a true mobile company.
WS
At BBG, we’ve expanded
exponentially across all the entities,
building out the m-Dot, mobile-
dedicated websites, moving from a
vendor to in-house development.
Right now we’re working on
making all our websites fully
responsive for mobile, which is
pretty huge. And we’ve just
finished a big redesign process,
expanding it on more platforms
and optimising it more for
performance and also for display
on different devices.
I think one of the upcoming big
opportunities we’re going to see is
in digital messaging, replacing the
very high-cost SMS experience.
With digital messaging you have
more opportunities for more
multimedia content, more group
chats, more direct connections and
different content style - like
incorporating emojis into news,
which is a fascinating new area.
Did you do all the BBG channels at
once? Or did each one have its own
quirks that you had to work with
one by one?
WS
We’ve been working with each
of the BBG entities. We have five
MOBILE
ISGLOBAL
The Broadcasting Board of
Governors oversees broadcast
operations of all US
government-operated
international media. Its
networks include the Voice of
America, Radio Free Europe/
Radio Liberty, and Radio Free
Asia. They have had a global
reach for decades, but with
most of the world increasingly
turning to mobiles for their
information, BBG has had to
change its strategy. BBG’s
Director of Global Strategy,
Robert Bole, and Director of
Mobile, Will Sullivan, give us a
glimpse of the organisation’s
mobile future
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ISSUE 1 2015
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THE CHANNEL
