How Bloomberg focuses on technology to help its news outfit

Pooja Malpani, Bloomberg Media’s head of engineering, did a Q&A where she spoke about technical challenges faced by the media industry.

Here is an excerpt:

How has the development of technology solutions for the media industry changed since you started in the field?

We’ve gone from analog to digital video and from DVDs and CDs to internet streaming – more than 50% of young American adults use streaming to watch TV as opposed to subscribing to traditional cable packages. Media companies are launching their own over-the-top (OTT) applications that stream content directly to consumers rather than only relying on linear subscription models.

For Bloomberg Media, users have direct access to content through Bloomberg.com or our mobile app, and our machine learning algorithms curate content to create a personalized experience for users. Breaking news on Bloomberg’s live blog can cause a spike in web traffic, and the right technology and investment are necessary to ensure that our systems can manage varying traffic patterns in a resource-efficient manner without adversely impacting user experience.

Our OTT offering has been part of our strategy for many years and it is available across multiple platforms, including Roku, Apple TV, Google TV and Samsung Smart TVs. The Bloomberg channel on the Roku platform offers the best of OTT, Video on-Demand and Live TV viewing experiences. Bloomberg Media was also one of the first media companies to offer OTT through Amazon Fire TV and was first to partner with Amazon for an Alexa Skill.

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