SQL Server - .NET Framework

Visual Studio

MTV successfully integrates TV and Internet

over Microsoft platform.

Overview Region: Latin America

Industry: Entertainment & Media

Business Situation

A new TV program required a fully

integrated community platform to connect

an audience with the story. A big impact

and associated high web traffic was

expected.

Solution

Guaridaazul.com was created on the

Microsoft Web Platform, developed with

Visual Studio and .NET technologies, with

SQL Server and Windows Server to support

strong traffic increase, full audience

engagement and intense participation.

Benefits

4.4 million hits

100% availability

5000+ simultaneous users

300.000 registered users

More than 1.5 million items of content

uploaded by users and actors.

"This has been so successful in terms of TV ratings and

audience participation with the online community that

we’ve already decided to continue to do this kind of thing

in the future, always seeking out new applications and

ways of integrating our TV audience with Internet

initiatives."

Luis Goicouría, VP of MTV Networks Latin America

MTV developed a fully integrated online community with their ISA

tk+ TV program for teenagers. High engagement between audience

and actors generated a heavy workload for the IT infrastructure,

based on Windows Server and SQL Server. Full availability and

flexibility of this platform were critical components of success.

Applications were created by Looppa S.A. with .NET and Visual

Studio.

Situation The convergence between TV and Internet

has begun and a top entertainment company

such as MTV is capitalizing on the opportunity

to launch new projects. The result: a Web

Community based on its teen series ISA TK+.

“The first season of ISA TKM on Nick had

already hinted at success and so for the

second one we began planning greater

integration with the Internet. Before this, the

content of the TV series unfolded in parallel

with the portal but there was no interaction

between the two. The content was good, but

we knew we had to offer the audience

something far more original. Industry

indicators showed us that teenagers in Latin

America were keen to participate if offered

the right environment”, comments Luis

Goicouría, Digital Media VP of MTV Networks

Latin America.

Producers and script writers worked on the

120 chapters of “ISA tk+” (te quiero más –I

love you more in Spanish) so that the

characters from the series could continue

performing on the site and interacting with

their fans. However, ensuring the continuity

and coherence of these roles was a major

challenge.

MTV sought the assistance of Looppa S.A., a

company specializing in creating online

communities, to create the technology

platform required to bring this network of TV

viewers to life.

“This was fairly challenging as the proposal

was undoubtedly going to have a high impact

and we needed to develop a platform able to

support it. The program’s features and the

format for interaction proposed for its fans

meant that we needed a powerful

infrastructure. We were not looking to do

something traditional like broadcast TV over

Internet or offer a portal which just

accompanied the program, but develop a

total integration between the two”, says Johni

Fisher, Co-Founder of Looppa.

Solution This was how the online community called

guaridaazul.com was created; its name

derived from a place where the stars of the

series hang out at school. The community’s

portal was heavily integrated with the TV

series from the start and focused on creating

spaces for the audience to join in.

The synergy created between program and

community was overwhelming. The actors’

lines and the storyline were adapted to

encourage a constant exchange between

stars and fans. Both characters and fans

could upload content onto the website, but

with the characters, they were carefully

scripted and timed to ensure that these

moments were fully synchronized with the

program and achieved the greatest impact

possible.

Guaridaazul.com has status indicators, links

to Facebook profiles and allows videos to be

uploaded or filmed directly with a webcam.

There is also a notice board, a space to

publish photos or articles, a trivia application

and an internal search engine which allows

all kinds of content to be found quickly and

easily. As most portal users are under age, all

the published content is screened by

Looppa’s team, which ensures that the basic

guidelines for this style of interactive portal

are rigorously respected.

Behind the user interface there are different

flows of tasks and business logic which

encourage interaction between participants

as well as Facebook integration. “Thanks to

.NET, we will be able to handle future

connections with other communities such as

mundonik.com, for example, independently

of the portal’s own technology, as long as the

SQL Server is shared as a database”, adds

David Balogh, Looppa’s CTO, in reference to

the Looppa Cosmos platform. This allows for

the horizontal integration of all the vertical

communities which MTV creates around each

of its series.

The entire technology platform was

developed by Looppa and is based on

Windows Server with SQL Server as a

database and the .NET 3.5 framework. “We

chose to work with Looppa because they

have the experience we needed for the

project. We’ve been able to optimize the way

we work with this channel to achieve long-

term success because of the continuous

monitoring of traffic statistics and a thorough

understanding of which resources work and

which don’t”, explains Goicouría.

Benefits The community has grown exponentially:

nearly 300.000 registered users followed the

chapters in the series with a high level of

engagement. “We have accumulated over

one and half million pieces of content

provided by the boys and girls following the

series, including photos, comments, videos

and avatars. This particular portal model has

allowed us to sustain an average of 13

minutes per active connection (while the

market average is 5 minutes), with peaks of

5,000 simultaneous users whenever one of

the characters posted something important,

which put a lot of pressure on the

infrastructure. Despite more than a three-fold

increase in site activity, we were always able

to offer 100% server availability thanks to the

stability and scalability of the Microsoft

technology at the core of the system”,

explains Johni Fisher. The site received over

4.4 million hits, nearly 68 million pages views

4.5 million of video views and more than one

million comments.

Once the application in Spanish was finished,

and thanks to the .NET and Visual Studio

resources, “it was very easy to migrate

everything to the Portuguese version, where

we also had a tremendous impact, with over

100,000 additional registered users with a

high level of participation”, adds Balogh.

Another interesting aspect of the project was

how they managed the financing, by

integrating advertising campaigns well-suited

to the community medium and context.

Several sponsors held high-impact launches

or exclusive promotions.

“This has been so successful in terms of

rating and audience participation with the

online community that we’ve already decided

to continue to do this kind of thing in the

future, always seeking out new applications

and ways of integrating TV viewers with

Internet proposals. We’re a media company

and as such we need to think in an

integrated way about the channels we use.

We want boys and girls to enjoy the program

online as much as they do on air”, adds Luis

Goicouría, Digital Media VP of MTV Networks

Latin America.

The development and online launch of the

portal and web application created to support

this community required two months’ work.

Given its resounding success, MTV has

decided to continue with a similar model for

its new series “Soy tu SuperStar” (I’m Your

SuperStar) which has an online reality format.

“In this case we linked both portals through a

Looppa Cosmos, with a unified login, which

simplifies things for users switching from one

community to another when both have

separate content. The adaptation of this

program only took us a month thanks to the

ease with which Microsoft tools and

technologies can be developed”, adds Fisher.

For More Information About Microsoft Argentina

www.microsoft.com/argentina

About Microsoft Latin America

www.microsoft.com/latam

About MTV

www.mtvla.com

About Looppa S.A.

www.looppa.com

Document published 27/09/2010