As 3G handset ownership and service uptake is skewed towards a young demographic, Idol was ideal for the BigPond portal.
The Challenge
Based on previous successes, Telstra awarded Hyro the contract to develop the 2007 Australian Idol mobile site.
The primary goal was to provide a compelling video experience that Idol addicts could access 24/7, and to drive SMS voting traffic. Also fundamental was encouraging user content, fan gossip and chat.
A final challenge was to maintain the site minimum effort, given that new video content would be added almost daily.
The Digital Business Solution
The site was built over 8 weeks, utilising an agile approach to allow Telstra flexibility to refine requirements. Site design was unique to the BigPond portal, though consistent with the Network TEN Australian Idol site (also by Hyro).
To realise the online community strategy, Hyro integrated with 3rd parties to provide interactive and collaborative features such as Polls, Chat rooms, Fan messages and Forums. Personalisation allowed users to customise the site for their “favourite” contestants.
This was complemented by MySpace-style contestant pages with Blogs, profiles and trivia, rounding out a hugely compelling fan site. All together these features proved to be amazingly popular with the mobile audience.
Through the season the program broadcast live to mobile, including exclusive-to-mobile content Eye on Idol. Each episode was then available on a loop, and each week 28 “highlights” video clips were also available.
Hyro developed an efficient bespoke system to streamline the file transfers to Telstra’s Streaming Events Platform and tools to update the site content.
Success Achieved
- The Idol site is positioned near the top of the BigPond portal, indicating its popularity.
- Site traffic often exceeds 6000 visitors and 35,000 page views per day.
- With 500 video clips available by season end, Idol is one of the largest mobile video entertainment sites in Australia.