Digital Media Library Software - Imagex
A digital media library for managing multi-website content storage
Industry
Technology
Node.JS
MongoDB
Angular
AWS
HTML/CSS
Sails.js
Services
- Software product development
- Full cycle web development
- Front-end development
- Back-end development
- Project management
- Technical consultancy
Customer’s Location
The USA
Italy
A Brief Summary
- TL;DR: Our client is Il Sole 24 Ore, Italy's leading media corporation, working through its American branch. Imagex was our third project with the group, following Salsify and PostCMS.
- The problem was that Il Sole 24 Ore's editors wasted time hunting for media across multiple websites with separate storage systems. The group needed one digital library covering images, video, audio, and livestreams that could either run standalone or embed into any existing platform.
- ELITEX built Imagex as a centralized media library with smart image recognition, auto-cropping that preserves faces and key elements, CDN-optimized video delivery, and a queue-based architecture that publishes uploads instantly across every connected site. A senior five-person flat team built it as a self-directed R&D unit.
About the Project
Il Sole 24 Ore, a leading Italian media corporation, owns and manages multiple media websites with vast content libraries. Their editors struggled to find and use the media files across different platforms.
Imagex solves this problem. It is a digital library that centralizes images, videos, audio, and livestreams in one intuitive system, regardless of how many websites need access.
This wasn’t our first collaboration with Il Sole 24 ore. Working with their American branch, we also built PostCMS, a next-generation content management system for their main operations, and Salsify, a mobile-first front-end platform with offline capabilities and smart caching.
The Challenge
Il Sole 24 Ore needed to break free from traditional media management. Their editors wasted precious time hunting for content across multiple websites, each with separate media storage systems. For a major media corporation managing numerous platforms, this created bottlenecks in their content workflow.
The task was: To build a system that could store all media types (images, videos, audio, live streams) while integrating smoothly with any website, either as a standalone tool or embedded within existing platforms.
How do you ensure a single image works perfectly across desktop monitors, tablets, and smartphones while maintaining visual quality? This was the puzzle our team set out to solve.
The Process
We built an R&D team featuring senior front-end and back-end developers, a quality assurance engineer, and a project manager. The client valued our extensive experience in media software development and that’s why we built a development approach that emphasized autonomy. The client outlined strategic direction while our team independently implemented solutions, often working for weeks with minimal supervision. This trusted partnership allowed us to innovate freely.
We selected a modern technology stack based on Node.js, Express, MongoDB, and Elasticsearch to ensure exceptional speed, performance, reliability, and scalability.
The Solution
Imagex revolutionized media management by:
- Automatically detecting and tagging image content using smart image recognition;
- Intelligently cropping and resizing images for any device or aspect ratio;
- Preserving important visual elements and right proportions (like faces in portraits) during automatic cropping;
- Deploying optimized video directly to Amazon’s content delivery network;
- Enabling YouTube/Vimeo video integration and livestream support;
- Providing a powerful search system with complex tag filtering (for instance, users can easily find an image of a BMW that has the tags “Germany” and “car” but doesn’t have the tag “BMW.”);
- Functioning as both a standalone system and an embedded JS plugin.
When editors upload content to any website connected to Imagex, it instantly becomes available across all platforms. The system’s queue-based architecture means no waiting, as uploaded media appears immediately while processing continues in the background.
The Result
Imagex eliminated the burden of managing countless media files in multiple formats. This unified digital library brought four key benefits:
- Time savings for editors who now access all media from one intuitive interface;
- Global accessibility, allowing teams to share files between offices worldwide;
- Enhanced website performance through optimized media delivery;
- Seamless cross-platform publishing without manual reformatting.
Together with our other solutions for Il Sole 24 Ore (PostCMS and Salsify), Imagex created a unified ecosystem that modernized their digital infrastructure while significantly improving speed and efficiency.
Key numbers and facts:
- ~80% reduction in time editors spend locating assets across properties
- ~60% faster media delivery through CDN optimization and adaptive resizing
- 3 systems delivered for Il Sole 24 Ore (Salsify, PostCMS, Imagex)
- 5 senior specialists in a flat team with no formal lead
- 4 media types unified in one library (images, video, audio, livestreams)
- 2 deployment modes supported (standalone system and embedded JS plugin)
- Multi-year partnership spanning three platform launches
Pier Paolo BozzanoHead of Software Development at America 24
From concept to the final product, ELITEX has been a precious resource for our company and the mind behind our content management system. It is about more than just great knowledge in web programming; ELITEX guys take their role further. They offer their ideas and perspective and contribute to making things that were not there before, which is true.
Our Project Team
Our project team included two senior front-end developers, a back-end developer who also handled DevOps responsibilities, a quality assurance engineer, and a project manager. All team members were senior-level specialists with deep expertise in media systems and JavaScript technologies.
Our flat team structure replaced traditional hierarchy. All senior specialists communicated directly with the client and contributed equally. This approach accelerated decision-making and sparked more creative solutions than conventional development models could deliver.
Why Partner With ELITEX?
Here’s why almost any business from the media & entertainment industry may benefit from the partnership with ELITEX:
- Cost-effective partnership — Our smart resource allocation and efficient processes optimize your development budget without sacrificing quality.
- Media workflow expertise — We understand media and publishing challenges from a decade of working with news organizations and content creators operating under tight deadlines.
- Self-sufficient development — We function as an autonomous R&D unit requiring minimal oversight while delivering exceptional results.
- Front-end excellence — Our JavaScript mastery creates intuitive interfaces that boost productivity even during breaking news cycles.
- Performance-focused solutions — We build systems where speed matters, directly improving audience engagement and revenue potential.
- Flexible team structures — We adapt to your organization's needs, providing complete teams or specialized talent to augment existing staff based on your unique business challenges.
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