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The newsstand website was first created in 1995. It lists over 2,500 magazines and makes the purchase of subscriptions to them available for delivery by post to any country in the world.
But what you see as a user is only the tip of the iceberg, underneath is the whole business model from creating address labels that match the magazines that have come in today with the subscribers who expect them, through to purchasing modules, facilities for managing returns, algorithms for scanning magazine covers and tying them back to specific issues and even monthly management accounts.
The full cloud computing business!
Business
Newsstand has shown a steady growth in business throughout its 15 year life and has always remained true to the original concept of making available the delivery of the enormous variety of English magazines to people, anywhere in the world.
Originally wanted only by a 12 month subscription, but today you can buy a subscriptions have any length from one magazine issue alone, to two years worth.
As magazines struggle to find shelf space, those not in the top 200 most popular category are increasingly welcome the opportunity for exposure offered by the newsstand service.
Technical
The latest version of the website is built round the .Net 3 development environment with an MS SQL database.
The site captures external data feeds on a daily basis which updates details of magazine issues and delivery schedules; the presentation of the information has been carefully optimised to enable the search engines to index the site efficiently and therefore to drive large number as of users to it every day.
The development team is always looking for new and improved ways of handling the large quantities are data that flow through the website: caching systems, Linq, Jason queries and all manner of graphic optimisation services.
Our latest venture has been the linking up of the website to an Android application that enables people to access all the information via their mobile phone.