The blog of an FT Product Manager

Monday, 20 July 2009

Hey, I hear you're interested in working for the FT. Well, I hope so because the lovely folk in HR have asked me to share some insight into what it's like at the pink paper. Alternatively you may just be an intrigued sort wondering what the devil we get up to in SE1, so welcome all the same!

Being on the digital side of FT and working on FT.com I thought I'd focus this on new things we're launching and how we go about designing and creating them. We like to think of ourselves as a creative bunch so we've always got something on the go that we're excited about and even if we haven't, we'll be trying to come up with the next bright idea - in fact all ideas are welcome, feel free to contribute!

So first off is the shiny new FT iPhone application we launched just last week and would you believe pop-pickers, went straight in at Number 2 in the download charts for UK News apps. The FT iphone promo (well a mashed-up version by an intrigued user complete with a funkier sound track) gives you an idea of how it looks.



The design needed to reflect the uncluttered pink FT brand which is being rolled out across FT.com whilst working with the iPhone features. Here's a note from my colleague who led the development:

"It was really interesting creating the application because the user interface is so different from the web. We had to design a completely different experience to allow for the touch screen and iPhone gestures and we're really pleased with the result"

STEVE PINCHES, LEAD PRODUCT MANAGER FT.COM

We announced the launch of the application via Twitter and it was the first time we'd made an announcement in this way. The Twitter community were great giving us lots of feedback which we'll feed into further enhancements and product development, so thanks to everyone who commented.