Cape Town - IOL will soon be revealing our revamped site and it’s all about you, our valued readers.
We know how busy you are, so we’ve created a new look IOL that makes it easier to keep up-to-date with the latest news, is faster and uses less data.
Here are 6 things you will love about our new site:
1. IOL’s new site is a PWA or Progressive Web App, which means our website now acts a lot like an app on your phone (or your tablet/desktop), but is still a website. It’s the best of both worlds!
2. It’s faster, particularly on mobile. The first time you access the site, it installs like a lightweight app and after that what’s updating is only the content. Your phone acts as the server. This also means you will be using less data.
3. You will be able to view your browsed content when you go offline. So you’ll be saving on data costs.
4. You will be able to add the web app as an icon to your home screen for easy access. Once we have turned on the feature, you can register for notifications and receive breaking news alerts on your screen.
5. We are making it easier to watch video stories and we’ll be bringing you lots more video content to engage with.
6. An improved and richer desktop experience: It may be optimised for mobile but desktop users will get the same functionality benefits since we have built the site as a PWA across all devices.
IOL Editor Riana Howa says: “Our starting point for the IOL site revamp was: We are producing amazing content but how can we make it easier for our more than 8 million users to engage with these stories? I am very happy to say that the team behind this project met the brief, with plenty more to come. The site is faster, cleaner and delivers a more immersive user experience. I look forward to sharing it with our readers."
Amit Makan, Chief Digital Officer of Volt Africa, adds: “We are very excited to go live with this implementation, and commend the hard work and excellent teamwork of the integrated Volt Africa, Saratoga and IOL teams. This will mean a much better and faster user experience for IOL’s audience, as well as an offline and app-like experience due to Google’s very advanced caching capabilities. We are looking forward to scaling this product amongst other digital media publishers in Africa.”
"The PWA will put us on the cutting-edge of technology, from which our users stand to benefit the most. The fact that we have stuck with one code base across all devices means that desktop users will benefit from the same features as the mobile users will. The software development itself has been such a pleasure, alongside an inspiring team, and an encouraging client, " said Lance Kuttner, senior developer at Saratoga.
David Steinacker, Senior Partner Manager of Google in Sub-Saharan Africa says Google developed the PWA technology to address the need by publishers for faster, richer, more engaging sites.
"We’re happy to have been able to work with Volt Africa on this new site. One of the biggest challenges faced by publishers is the need to create fast, richer, more engaging sites that allow readers better connect with stories and news even while on mobile. We launched the Accelerated Mobile Pages Projects in 2016 to address these challenges. Together with the Progressive Web App (PWA) technology which has helped to build single news experiences across devices and operating systems, publishers like Volt Africa will speed up the accessibility of their pages, and improve the content and advertising experiences for their users."