Migrating The Economist platform

Recognising that the Internet was disrupting the publishing industry and that it was time for the 173-year-old publication to bring a new mindset to economist.com, Chief Technology Officer, Mark Brincat and Head of Front End Development, Angelo Repole commissioned YLD to make technology a core part of their business and an integral part of their storytelling as a publisher.

The year-long project was part of a strategy to improve the economist.com user experience, support faster feature development and product launches, and create a more responsive system. The brief also included helping to make integration with digital partners easier, make existing content more easily re-packagable, increase advertising inventory, and to optimise acquisition and conversion activities.

YLD replaced all Economist.com user-facing pages, replacing every piece of HTML. Our project team of five specialist engineers helped improve site architecture using Node.js and React.js technologies, to both update the systems and the way they talk to each other while delivering a content-centric approach and a more flexible solution. We separated frontend development and the content repository, revamped the frontend and then built the content repository as a platform where content can easily be found and ingested at the frontend.

We were a key partner in the transformation process, helping the Chief Technology Officer and internal stakeholders build a vision around creating a better reading experience for their readers. As part of the cross-training, we worked with the Economist engineering team to train them, build their confidence and introduce best practices in their delivery processes.