Institute and industry collaboration
When StoryStock, a global online community of journalists and storytellers, were in the development stage of their media platform, IMaR (Intelligent Mechatronics and RFID) Technology Gateway at Institute of Technology Tralee (IT Tralee) helped to address
IMaR Technology Gateway, IT Tralee and StoryStock & MiCRA Technology Gateway, IT Tallaght and Incereb
Case Study: INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, TRALEE - IMAR & STORYSTOCK LTD
StoryStock (www. storystock.com) is an innovative company led by a team of former international journalists. The global online community allows journalists to upload their best stories about people. In turn, StoryStock then license the uploaded stories, mostly in video, to their global media and brand partners, allowing StoryStock storytellers to get paid and credited. This also gives their media and brand clients great stories to use for online adverts and digital content.
At development stage, a number of challenges were identified which required a research and development approach to solve. The main issues to be addressed included the requirement for an efficient and usable method for media cataloguing and tagging within the StoryStock platform and also the development of a search strategy that would most suit the company’s target market. Further to this, to create a scalable and usable database, certain issues around the encoding of media files and storage strategies had to be addressed.
In collaboration with the IMaR Gateway at Institute of Technology, Tralee, StoryStock accessed Enterprise Ireland Innovation Voucher funding and together, they addressed the main issues surrounding the development of efficient methods of media item tagging and implementation of bespoke search functionality for their media database. In addition, specific problems surrounding media encoding and storage strategies were also addressed to improve functionality of the StoryStock online media platform.
The project enabled StoryStock to develop the media platform from a prototype stage to a close-to-market product by addressing key limiting factors within the system.
Francis Fitzgibbon, CEO StoryStock, says: “The input of IMaR allowed us to develop and fine-tune our technology to meet our customer’s needs. Their input also allowed us to transition from a concept to a CSF (Competitive Start Fund) Enterprise Ireland client company in the space of 12 months.”
Fitzgibbon adds: “The assistance and input of the staff at IMaR was invaluable in this challenging process.”