Third Light writes:
Around the world - and around the clock - together with its partners, The Met Office is working hard to make accurate weather and climate advice available to all. Everything it does is based on world-leading science and enhanced by close working relationships with partner organisations around the globe. It collects and makes sense of massive amounts of data every day, using cutting-edge technology for the benefit of mankind - and our planet. Speaking to Ross Middleham, Content Production Lead, we were able to understand how Third Light's media library technology helps them communicate this vital information on a global scale.
The Met Office co-operates with and supports businesses, agencies and governments in making short and long-term decisions, making the world a safer and more resilient place tomorrow, and for the years - and decades - to come. They are the people behind the weather forecasts that feature on TV, online and on your phone - keeping you in touch with our ever-changing weather. They are trusted to help protect UK armed forces as they plan missions around the weather; and to keep technology safe with our space weather forecasts.
They also help the UK and other economies prosper, advising on energy and retail sectors of weather that might affect consumer trends, and helping airlines reduce costs, and run safely and on schedule.
Find and reuse valuable content
With such a huge responsibility, it's no surprise that the Met Office team needed some sophisticated technology to help them manage their growing library of digital media content, and communicate their messages effectively.
Ross explains: "We use the media library software every day as a way of labelling, storing and archiving what we're producing. Metadata labels enable us to find and reuse valuable 'explainer' content that's relevant to the weather on a particular day. We can find accurate content, and if necessary just update the design, marking the old version as expired to ensure it isn't used again. This is a great time saver."
Finding and retrieving specific files from within a library is simple, thanks to the software's powerful search engine. The user simply enters what they're looking for, and the smart logic behind the search box will find the right files in the system based on the metadata (tags) attached to each file.
Examples of metadata you can search within include:
- Captions and keywords
- File types and sizes
- Dates of creation, upload, and amendment
- Author or photographer information
- Licensing and copyright information
- Geographic location and GPS mapping information
- File history and use.
The Met Office has a vast library of images, video and other graphics, but not all of it is suitable for use.
Ross continues:"Within the software you can categorise media, giving it special permissions or flags, and this is a great way of ensuring only approved content gets used, especially when there are so many different files in the system. It's a really efficient and easy way of sharing work across the team and office."
Good customer service makes a big difference
As a small, friendly company, the Third Light team pride themselves on delivering the best customer service, tailored to individual needs. Having a reliable solution in the first place is key, but customers need to know that help is at hand - questions will be answered quickly and problems will be fixed effectively and in a friendly manner.
Ross concludes: "The thing that really stood out about Third Light was the customer service whilst I was trialling the product. The team set me up with a demo account and gave me time to test and review how it worked. They also helped by extending my trial and storage space, and then took time to screen share and talk me through all the features and answer my questions. That level of service really makes a difference."
Third Light works with leading brands worldwide to help them manage, store, share and distribute digital files more effectively. If you think we could help your team too, just ask@thirdlight.com . Or if you haven't tried our digital media library yet, sign-up today for a 30-day free trial.
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