Automated Trader Magazine

http://www.automatedtrader.net/

We have worked with Andy and the team at Automated Trader magazine for little over 3 years, and in that time the web portal has seen some fantastic growth from what was simply a supporting web site to the print edition to a whole entity that has many features that simply cannot be printed. The portal obviously needed a powerful user registration and subscriptiopn system that could be administrated via the CMS, this was one of the foundations for the entire site and one of its premier profit making features.

AlgoWorld

The massively popular AlgoWorld feature is just one such example, this is a unique feature on Automated Trader that not only advertises a large selection of traders from all over the world but also proves to be an invaluable resource for clients that wish to know where in the world their markets are. This uses a custom built Google Maps application that allows Automated Trader the ability to easily upload a trader's details through the CMS and then let the system create the animated Google map. When David Clayden (AT US Director of Operation) first contacted me about this just before Christmas 2007 he envisaged maybe a high end flash application that simply mapped out a collection of traders from all over the world, that let the viewer search for them.  This was definitely a good possibility, but the hosting of the map data and then the search capability would have hit the bandwidth very heavily, so I started to investigate what could be done with Google Maps, this way Google would take the bandwidth hit and Hopefully the system could still stand up as an impressive application.

The first issue was animating the map, which was one of David's prerequisites, he wanted the map to highlight a particular trader then animate to the next one, in random order, constantly, exactly like a screensaver would.  Now what you must understand is that javascript is not really a coding language that enjoys animating elements, therefore i found that by hacking PHP into the Javascript code i could animate the page by setting the time that each element appeared, so the first trader appears just after the map has finished loading, then after 15000 microseconds the second one appears and so on, until the end of the current list where the page reloads silently to start the process again.  Not the most efficient method, but it works to great effect.

Digital Editions - eBook versions

Automated Trader magazine is also published on the website in a variety of ways, the most popular and easiest way to read the magazine is to with one of our flash digital edition applications, Andy needed this to be published at the same time as the print edition every quarter and also to be limited in its scope to unsubscribed viewers.  This way anyone can get a feel of the current issue without sales being lost.  Please click here to view a current edition.  For subscribers to the magazine they also get full copies in both PDF and Flashpaper formats.

Video Trade Show Coverage

I currently work closely with the worldwide team at Automated Trader to provide them with an (almost) live video coverage of all the important trade shows that happen throughout the year. The custom built content management solution allows the team to easily create a new article and then attach whatever video format file that they want to it.  The system takes care of embedding this on the front end and all relevant coding. 

Real Time News

Automated Trader in partnership with NeedToKnowNews now provides its readership with some incredibly rich real time news content.  This is available constantly on the site either via the search engine, the Real Time News section or with our usually RSS feeds.  

Content Management System

Automated Trader magazine's content management system was started with the intent that it needed to rapidly expand alongside the growth of the front end. So I built it in a modular but themed manner, allowing each new part of the front end to have a new section in the admin, whilst sticking rigidly to a fixed admin template.  This enables the tam at Automated Trader to easily pickup the method of editing for each new part.

The content management for Automated Trader is all encompassing, allowing the team to not only update the article and page content, but to edit and change all of extra features available on the site such as the Algoworld and video content.  The CMS also stores statistics on the adverts, click tracking of articles and user registration and subscription management.