Vignette launches digital publishing platform

Software provider Vignette today delved deeper into its content management strategy with the launch of Vignette Media, a digital publishing platform for the telco, media and entertainment (TEM) industries. The platform, which lets marketing and business professionals deliver digital content over multiple screens, is aimed at addressing the blurring line between media companies and telecom service providers.

“A lot of media companies are acting like telcos, if you look at Sky in the UK purchasing ISPs and offering voice-over-IP phone lines,” said Lee Shepstone, Vignette Media’s chief technology officer. “We’re also seeing a lot of telcos, like AT&T here and [British Telecom] in the UK, starting to act like media companies, having set-top boxes and launching video-on-demand download sites and offering up content…We’ve been working on the Vignette Media product to specifically support that industry with vertical products and a vertical content management system.”

Vignette is offering what Shepstone calls an out-of-the-box content model, in which all digital assets, including images, video podcasts or news articles, are supported across the entire Web experience. Vignette operates on the backend to manage content distribution and integrate with VOD and other Internet TV portals. Through a platform-agnostic digital storefront, content-based companies can create and manage digital storefronts, online games and user-generated content focused communities from a single platform-agonistic interface.

In preparation for the launch of the Media Server, Vignette has rolled out six products in the past year, including a recommendation engine, community products and a video server for managing third-party videos. Called Vignette Video Services, the platform repurposes content to various venues, including iTunes, TiVo and real-time transcoding to IPTV or mobile handsets.

“It’s delivered as a platform-as-a-service and represents one of the first enterprise companies with fortitude offering a novel way of managing your video,” said Tom Gilley, CTO of Vignette Video Services. “We’re seeing a lot of opportunity in media, social and enterprise environments for video.”