Condé Nast Entertainment (CNE) is the digital video and entertainment division of Condé Nast. It creates films, T.V. shows, premium digital video, social, and virtual reality content. I started out as a digital editor developing content strategy, writing editorial and marketing copy, and managing distribution operations with media partners.

As I began to get more involved in product-related work, I ended up transitioning into a full product manager role. As a PM, I was responsible for our editorial video products, which included an in-house CMS and our cross-network viewing destination—The Scene. In 2015, I was a part of the team that won the company's annual 24-hour Hack-a-thon. Our team conceived and built a working prototype (and revenue model) for a custom GIF-maker that was built into our proprietary video player. 

Social Interaction Features

As PM for the editorial video products at CNE, one of the products I worked on was our digital video portal called The Scene. The Scene is a single-page app with a corresponding iOS app where users can watch short-form videos like Vogue's "73 Questions," GQ's "Actually Me" and WIRED's "Autocomplete Interviews". To help foster a sense of community among our users we built out robust social components that allowed them to connect with one another and stay up-to-date with their favorite shows, topics, and celebrities. I worked on the product strategy and development for these features, teaming up closely with our product design and engineering teams to take it from MVP to launch. 

With these new social components users were able to create a free account, save videos, and follow specific channels, categories, and their friends. By integrating with Facebook's Graph API, we were able to suggest friends to follow so that users could share their favorite videos with each other. We also built out a comprehensive account management system that allowed users to control their preferences and settings. Additionally, we created an onsite notification system to let users know when a new video published on a channel or topic they were following. 

To generate awareness and assist with user acquisition we launched a social campaign, sent newsletter blasts, and integrated call-to-actions in the viewing experience. We knew that a majority of users made it through at least 25 percent of our short-form videos, so we strategically placed these CTAs before then to capture new sign ups. 

OTT Apps

Distribution and a multi-platform approach are key when it comes to building a successful digital video business. Knowing this, we launched apps for The Scene on over-the-top devices, including Apple TV, Roku, and Xbox. In addition to supporting key relationships with all of our non-owned-and-operated partners, I managed the programming, workflow, and product strategy for our OTT apps, helping to grow our audience across all screens and devices. 

In-House Content Management System (CMS)

At CNE we developed a custom CMS to help meet our specific needs for asset management, video publishing, and distribution. Our users for this product consisted of editors, producers, and writers, all of whom needed the ability to quickly access, update, and publish video content. We also needed our CMS to exist as the main source of truth for the latest rights information associated with a piece of content. We knew that balancing an intuitive UI and creating a seamless user experience would allow us to support our complex product requirements. Over time we were able to build an advanced system that could support anything from setting platform-specific publish times for a piece of content, to storing all metadata associated with a video, to cutting custom thumbnails, to auto-generating URL redirects.