We’ve just rolled out a new project, here at Brolly. Our client is, the Mayfair Theatre, a local independently run movie theatre in Ottawa, Ontario. The theatre recently closed down for renovations and is now under new ownership. Their web site was in serious need of an update, so we took the opportunity to do some really new and exciting things. We have been very excited about this project – it gave us great freedom to further develop our experience in social media and focus on providing meaningful interaction between our client and their customers.

Like many of our other projects, the website is built upon the WordPress platform. We built a custom plugin for them to manage their upcoming movie listings. This plugin has some great features:

IMDB Integration

The Wordpress plugin allows the Mayfair Theatre to manage their upcoming movies and showtimes. Instead of forcing the administrator to enter in details for each movie that’s playing, we interfaced with a very neat movie database api, called The Movie Database, to allow them to import upcoming movie information, YouTube trailers and high quality artwork. This feature will saves huge amounts of time.

Twitter Integration

We set up the theatre with a twitter account, @mayfairtheatre, and used the Twitter API to automatically broadcast what movies are playing on a daily basis. We are encouraging users to follow the theatre’s Twitter account with a series of giveaways including: movie passes, free concession coupons and movie posters. We believe that keeping people informed of show times on a daily basis will greatly improve attendance.

Google Calendar

Another way we are keeping users up-to-date on the movie schedule is by integrating show times with Google Calendar using the Google API. This calendar stays synchronized with the online schedule and allows users to add the calendar to their computer and mobile devices.

By leveraging existing APIs we were able to build a lot of great functionality into the site, within a limited budget and short development cycle. It seems like every day we are finding new and exciting ways to expand WordPress to accommodate the diversity of our clients. Look for more exciting plugins and services coming soon!

In response to the current state of the American economy many companies are looking for innovative methods of reducing costs. A business looking to develop or overhaul their corporate web presence should consider shedding their expensive content management system for a lower cost alternative. Companies have heard a great deal in the last few years about the benefits of open-source. The recent culture of belt-tightening that has spread through all major industries provides companies with an excellent opportunity to explore these technologies.

Here at Brolly, we have just launched a new corporate website for Aurora Importing and Distributing, a medium sized Canadian food importing business, built entirely on the WordPress platform.

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