Case Study: RadioJavan

BACKGROUND

RadioJavan (http://www.radiojavan.com) is the world’s largest 24/7 Web-based Persian music channel. With an average of 15,000 unique daily visitors and more than 6,000 registered users, RadioJavan has established itself as a leading niche online music channel.

CHALLENGE

RadioJavan was created in 2004 to provide Persian music to listeners around the world via Web-based streaming media. RadiaJavan was primarily a static website with some streaming media capabilities when it launched, featuring no dynamic content. With good momentum in terms of site traffic – attracting up to 5,000 visitors a day at the time – RadioJavan’s founders wanted to expand the site’s features to begin attracting more visitors and create a sustainable business model. They also wanted to preserve their market share in this niche, in the midst of a host of new competitors eyeing their user base.

In the summer of 2007, inspired by the success of social networking sites like Facebook, the founders decided to transform RadioJavan into a social network and online music store - dedicated to providing Persian music enthusiasts with a single destination for their needs and interests.

RadioJavan was ambitious with their goals. After all, they had no full-time employees. The service was self-funded and a part-time effort for its founders. With only one developer on its team, RadioJavan would have its hands full transforming the site into a social network and online music store.

SOLUTION

At the same time RadioJavan was planning its new features, its lead developer and co-founder Hamed Hashemi had been experimenting with a new development platform – now known as Appcelerator. The framework was in development at the time – Hashemi was actively involved in building the solution through the community.

Hashemi decided to develop the new features using Appcelerator, and began production on the new RadioJavan portal in June 2007. Hashemi is an experienced programmer, proficient in HTML and CSS, but also Javascript, Ruby on Rails, PHP and several other languages. By using Appcelerator, he was able to create new site features in a third of the time by eliminating the manual Javascript coding.

“The initial version of Appcelerator was far less sophisticated than what you can download today,” said Hashemi. “But it still enabled me to build out features of the site in a fraction of the time. I’m capable of handwriting Javascript and integrating all the various widgets and effects you’ll see on RadioJavan today – but why do that if you can use a tool like Appcelerator to do the work for you?”

Appcelerator integrates various Javascript libraries, widgets and integration points into a seamless development framework. Using the platform’s Web Expression Language, developers are able to add expressions to standard HTML to unleash Ajax and DHTML within their applications.

“We have a large feature set in the new RadioJavan,” adds Hashemi. “If I had to go out and find other scripts, integrate widgets or handwrite all the services, we would never have launched the new site. With Appcelerator, things like site search or voting are part of the platform. With a simple command line, I’m able to inject the functionality or effect into the application and it writes the code for me behind the scenes.”

OUTCOME

Hashemi was able to create the new RadioJavan site in about a month using the Appcelerator Platform. With Appcelerator’s integrated support for Ruby on Rails, Hashemi was able to deploy the new application into his existing environment with minimal effort. The fact that one developer was able to create such a sophisticated social media site in his spare time speaks to the speed of development advantages delivered by Appcelerator.

Hashemi is most impressed by the stability of the Appcelerator Platform. “We get a lot of traffic at RadioJavan, but we get zero support requests. When you consider all the different browsers people are using, it says a lot that Appcelerator’s technology works across all of them. We’ve never received a complaint from a user who wasn’t able to listen to a song, view a video or use any of our other dynamic features on the site. As a small organization, not having to deal with support issues is a key benefit of using Appcelerator.”

Since the launch of the new site, RadioJavan has increased its traffic to an average of 15,000 unique listeners per day and more than 6,000 members tuning in, building social connections and making purchases through its online music store.

Hashemi is now a core developer on Appcelerator, actively contributing to the latest versions of the platform. For more information on RadioJavan, please visit http://www.radiojavan.com.