Econsultancy Invests $500,000 Into New Website

London, United Kingdom, January 30, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Internet research and training specialist Econsultancy has relaunched its website in advance of a push into the US market.

The company spent around $500,000 to redesign and develop a bespoke online publishing platform, which was conceived and created by an in-house technology team.

The project, led by Econsultancy CTO Tom Stuart and managed by Econsultancy CEO Ashley Friedlein, took almost 18 months to complete. The company "soft" launched the new website just before Christmas. After a relatively hassle-free month the site has now been moved out of a public "beta" status.

"The old infrastructure and platform simply wasn't capable of going where we want to go. The new site allows us to do so much more, and it is much more of a 'platform' than a website. In theory we could re-sell it as a platform to others, though we're not planning to go down that route," says Econsultancy CEO Ashley Friedlein.

Econsultancy's research and training is recognised globally for helping companies make the most of their budgets.

"We're always talking about best practice in digital marketing and e-commerce, we are keen to try to practice what we preach as far as possible. With the old website it was increasingly difficult to do this, which we all found incredibly frustrating," adds Friedlein.

The new Econsultancy platform was built from scratch using the highly-regarded Ruby on Rails web application framework. Econsultancy CTO Tom Stuart explains: "It's always challenging to plan ahead with a project of this size, but the agility and flexibility of Rails gave us the freedom to evolve the new site's implementation in response to the changing demands of our business and customers."

Stuart adds: "I think we've ended up building something pretty special in a relatively short space of time. Having launched the site we're now working hard to improve the existing features and make new functionality available to the Econsultancy community."

New services and features due for release in 2009 include APIs, Unicode support, personalised RSS, mobile functionality, eLearning modules, and there is also the ability to provide customised versions of Econsultancy for larger companies.

Econsultancy launched its first website back in 1999 as a networking forum for internet professionals.

The privately-held company has just opened an office in New York to further grow its award-winning subscription publishing and events business in the US. Former ClickZ Network VP and editor-in-chief Rebecca Lieb recently joined the company as VP to help oversee Econsultancy's expansion.

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Media contact
Chris Lake (chris@econsultancy.com)
00 44 207 681 4052

About Econsultancy
Econsultancy is a respected source of independent advice and insight on all aspects of digital marketing and e-commerce. The award-winning publisher operates a paid-subscription model used by many of the world's foremost brands.

Econsultancy's reports, events, online resources and training programmes help a community of 75,000+ registered marketers make better decisions, build business cases, find the best suppliers, look smart in meetings and accelerate their careers. The website attracts 175,000 unique users per month.

Econsultancy also operates a highly popular training division, used by some of the world's most prominent brands for staff education, both in-house and via public courses.

In-house and public training is provided across all areas of digital marketing, including SEO, social media, online PR, mobile marketing, affiliate marketing, online copywriting, managing e-commerce teams, and at all levels from one day courses to a Masters in Digital Marketing.

Econsultancy is headquartered in London, UK, and also has a new office in New York.