EMI Music is the biggest independent record label in the world. EMI Music represents 1,000 artists from all musical genres in 50 countries. One of its focuses is to develop and promote digital services via the Web, mobile channels, and TV throughout the world, providing fans with a rich, complete musical experience.

We have interviewed them and asked about their approach to eZ Publish, new media and content management.

How has the internet transformed EMI's approach?

In order to address evolving consumer needs, EMI Music France has intensified its marketing strategy and promotional activities on the internet. It is a fast and highly competitive industry where responsiveness is crucial for developing and sustaining market share. It is essential that we have dynamic content and an engaging Web presence.

What sort of content management solutions have you implemented? What have been the challenges and difficulties?

EMI Music France has implemented a content management platform that has allowed us to standardize our site development and maintenance process – including artist, record label and event websites. A major technical challenge was to integrate dynamic, interactive Flash elements with other content. We also needed a Web 2.0 capable content management platform that could handle RSS importing and exporting across multiple sites, manage widgets, handle multiple video formats, and so on. The overall goal of the platform is to be able to quickly deploy and easily manage quality sites that can evolve over time.

In which projects have you used eZ Publish?

We use eZ Publish as part of the platform on all of our promotional, artist, and label sites. Developed by SMILE according to our technical requirements, our platform has served as the starting point for approximately fifty live websites, including http://www.etiennedaho.com and http://www.ilovem83.com.

A lot of your artist sites make strong use of Flash. How has EMI managed to integrate Flash elements with a content management system?

The dynamic aspect of our sites is certainly important, and eZ Publish integrates perfectly with Flash content. The eZ Publish template system, along with XML support, works efficiently and effectively. We have been able to create and manage dynamic content in record time.

Why did you choose eZ Publish?

At SMILE's recommendation, we chose eZ Publish due to its open nature (it is 100% Open Source) and its ability to meet our technical needs. With eZ Publish, we have been able to develop sites in record time, improving our ability to keep up with industry trends.

Can you give some examples of future eZ Publish projects?

EMI Music France hopes to continue to evolve our platform, based on eZ Publish, to use new templates and make our site development speed even faster. The platform will interact with new applications and add more interactivity with mobile devices. We also hope to use eZ Publish to re-design our EMI Music France portal to regroup and centralize all of our artist and event sites.

With the music industry in a time of rapid change, what are EMI's plans for its online activities?

It is clear that the internet continues to increase in importance in our development plans. We are well-equipped to anticipate market demands and to respond to new formats, more video content, mobile growth and more. Our content management tools will continue to
support us as we rise to the challenge.

Thank you for your time.

For more information, please visit: http://www.emimusic.fr