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Suffering significant issues around speed and stability within their existing application, the New Zealand Herald approached us with the Rugby World Cup fast approaching. They wanted us to revive their existing platform into an app worthy of New Zealand’s most trusted news outlet.

NZME, the owners of NZ Herald, were looking for a trusted party to build a great app that delivered an engaging experience and a partner for ongoing support, maintenance and enhancements. Plans were ambitious, intending to use video more readily and launch into premium content and subscriptions.

When a challenge is brought to Putti, we always take it at face value and assess the situation logically so we can plan and decide on the best course of action.

After reviewing the existing code, our initial recommendation was a full rebuild, which was not viable given the condensed timeline that NZ Herald was considering.

Adapting to these realities and limitations, the team worked on the existing code delicately, ensuring that we did it in a sustainable and scalable manner, with the understanding that this app would have to evolve and grow over time.

Since the initial project to get a great app in the market, the Putti team has been integral to all mobile application feature and functionality refinements and launches.

To expedite this process, our lead mobile developer embedded within NZ Herald’s team for several months, providing development guidance and streamlining code management.

There have since been some large projects like the implementaiton of the Washington Post CMS framework and in 2019, the bold move to offer a premium subscription for targeted content. This subscription service has proven to be a great success for NZME in a market dominated by advertising subsidised media content and Putti played a big role in enabling a smooth customer experience.