Slides from a presentation at WordCamp Columbus 2013. More at: http://largoproject.org

1. Project LargoA Responsive WordPress Framework
for News Websites
Adam Schweigert
aschweigert@gmail.com
Twitter: @aschweig

2. Me
• Currently:
– Director of Technology for the Investigative News
Network
– Founder of my own consultancy, Media Toybox
– Learning to play banjo
• Previously:
– Director of Strategy at Mindset Digital
– Director of Digital at WOSU Public Media (NPR/PBS)
– Director of Digital at Indiana Public Media (NPR/PBS)
– Grad school at Indiana University
– Undergrad at Ohio State
Email: aschweigert@gmail.com
Twitter: @aschweig

3. “We, representatives of nonprofit
news organizations, gather at a time
when investigative reporting, so
crucial to a functioning democracy, is
under threat. There is an urgent need
to nourish and sustain the emerging
investigative journalism ecosystem to
better serve the public.”
— The Pocantico Declaration, 2009

4. Today: 86 Members

5. Today: 86 Members
http://InvestigativeNewsNetwork.org

6. The Problem
• Many members have little or no dedicated
technology resources
• INN wants to help but we’re a small
organization
• Not feasible to provide one-on-one help to
every member
• Most members have websites, but…

13. http://LargoProject.org
http://github.com/inn/largo
Our Solution: Project Largo

14. Project Largo
• WordPress-based
– Used by more and more major news sites
– Large, active community
– Many third party plugins
– Easy to learn
– Fast and (relatively) inexpensive to develop

15. Project Largo
• WordPress-based
• Optimized for News Publishers

26. Project Largo
• WordPress-based
• Optimized for News Publishers
• Responsive Design – Looks great on any
device

29. Project Largo
• WordPress-based
• Optimized for News Publishers
• Responsive design – Looks good on any
device
• Easy to setup, customize and extend

35. Benefits
• For Publishers
– Dramatically reduce cost of developing and launching a website
– Remove technical barriers to allow you to focus on content
• For Readers
– Clean, fast-loading, beautiful reading experience on any device
• For Developers
– A robust toolkit for building news websites
• For INN
– Framework allows us to build and launch sites quickly and
provide better support to our members
– Common backend enables new distribution and content
syndication possibilities
– When INN (or a member) builds a new feature we’re better able
to share with the entire network

36. Where We Are
(~1 Year into the project)
• About 20 sites in our network using Largo
• Around 20 non-INN sites (that we know of) using the open source
version
• Upcoming first “public” release of the Largo framework
– Design improvements
– Custom landing page for projects
– More flexibility for article page layouts
– Better tools for customizing the look of a Largo site (without
having to touch the code)
• Working on better documentation
• Soon: new “magazine” theme optimized for Longform

37. Contribute!
Download or fork Largo on Github:
http://github.com/inn/largo
(Plugins other themes, etc. at: http://github/inn)
Use Largo in your own project
Contribute Code (or documentation)
Get in Touch
aschweigert@gmail.com
(or: largo@investigativenewsnetwork.org)

38. Questions?
Adam Schweigert
aschweigert@gmail.com
Twitter: @aschweig
Project Largo
http://LargoProject.org
Github: http://github.com/inn/largo
Twitter: @LargoProject
Investigative News Network
http://InvestigativeNewsNetwork.org
Twitter: @INN