Lana, a progressive news brand based in the United Arab Emirates, set itself the ambitious task to bring a fresh perspective to the future of Arabic media and set a new precedent for digital newsrooms. Looking for a technical partner to help bring this strategic goal to life, Lana approached Big Bite to build its news website.
An exciting project from the offset, Lana’s brief dove straight into exploring the advantages of AI along with intuitive custom features that would redefine how content is discovered and shared. Closely collaborating with the Lana team to create an immersive and personalised experience for its readers, we built a WordPress solution that leveraged the power of full site editing’s (FSE) flexible feature set. By creating all aspects of the Lana site via blocks – including top menus, sidebars and footers – we empowered editorial teams to effortlessly manage and customise the site without the need for extensive coding know-how.
Along with a bunch of custom features and expansion of WordPress’ core functionality, we’ve detailed some highlights from the project below:
Mobile in mind
Aiming to mirror the mobile-first, interactive experiences readers have become accustom to on social media, our team built Programs – the video driven news plugin that provides visual highlights of topical content for those who prefer to consume news in short and snappy segments. By providing this alternative media format, Lana places itself as a contender to compete with top social media platforms that continue to grow in popularity.
AI driven experiences
We also led on the development of Lana’s AI initiative, which aimed to provide a more intuitive experience for both its readership and editorial staff. From utilising Google Gemini to automate the process of elaborating on key topics with the click of a button to automatically creating audio summaries of articles, Lana’s custom AI plugins help to create a more comprehensive and accessible news outlet for readers without taking up anymore of editors’ time.
With the Lana site launching just last month, we’re thrilled to see the project literally come to life and can’t wait to continue our work with the team to build more innovative WordPress features.
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