Company Name:

StoryStock Ltd

Funding Source:

Enterprise Ireland Innovation Voucher & Direct Research Consultancy

Project Title:

Online Media Platform Functionality Optimisation

Profile Of Company:

StoryStock is an innovative new company lead by a team of former international journalists. StoryStock are building a global online community of journalists (storytellers) who are uploading their best stories, about people, to StoryStock.com. StoryStock then license their uploaded stories, mostly in video, to their global media and brand partners, allowing StoryStock storytellers to get paid and credited, giving their media clients a global army of reporters and giving their brand clients great stories to use for online adverts and digital content. StoryStock has recently completed the Enterprise Ireland New Frontiers programme, and have recently been successful on achieving Competitive Start Funding from Enterprise Ireland.

Problem To Be Solved:

StoryStock are in the final stages of deploying their media platform. At the development stage a number of challenges were identified which require a research and development approach to solve. The main issues to be addressed involved the requirement for an efficient and usable method for media cataloguing and tagging within the StoryStock platform and also the development of a search strategy that would most suit their target market. Further to this, to create a scalable and usable database certain issues around the encoding of media files and storages strategies had to be addressed.

How IMaR Delivered a Solution For Industry:

In collaboration with IMaR, StorkStock accessed Enterprise Ireland Innovation Voucher funding and together addressed the main issues surrounding the development of efficient methods of media item tagging and implementation of bespoke search functionality for their media database. In addition specific problems surrounding media encoding and storage strategies were also addressed to improve the functionality of the StoryStock online media platform.

Impact of the company

This project enabled StoryStock to develop the media platform from a prototype stage to a close to market product by addressing key limiting factors within the system. Through engagement with IMaR, StoryStock successfully accessed Enterprise Ireland funding to enable IMaR to solve issues which had been preventing StoryStock from full deployment of their system.

“The input of the IMaR allowed us to develop and fine tune our technology to meet our customer’s needs. The input of the IMaR allowed us to transition from a concept into a CSF Enterprise Ireland client company in the space of 12 months. The input and assistance of the staff of the ImaR was invaluable in this challenging process.” Francis Fitzgibbon, CEO, StoryStock Ltd.