Melody is now a reference content manager for many media groups. The story of a success story that began in 2008... and that led this headless CMS to the other side of the Atlantic !
Behind a beautiful story, there is always a vision. That of a scenario, of its possible twists and turns... And of its outcome, whether it is a goal, an end point or a half-open door. Bruno Génuit, founder of Melody and his CMS headless, had this vision in 2008. At the time, the press was facing one of its biggest revolutions: the digital transformation from a purely print newsroom to one that feeds the web. Or even that would make the latter its workhorse.
And the site is huge! Certainly, in the regional and national daily press, the question of the web was raised very early: as early as 1995, Libération, Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, Le Monde started to go digital, quickly followed by other daily newspapers in 1996. However, in 2008, the uses, driven by a technology that is still in its infancy, still require a lot of adaptation. This is why Bruno Génuit launched Demain Un Autre Jour, now Melody.
"At the time," he confirms, "I wanted to set up an activity to do consulting and support editors in the evolution of their profession."
The time-space revolution and the advent of the content manager.
Because, more than ever, tomorrow would be another day. "I had a leitmotiv: the whole profession had to expect a huge change, especially in the question of time. A revolution because, with the Web, it is, on the one hand, the information or the current events which guide, imposing a situation of permanent looping. And, on the other hand, the advent of multimedia."
In short, for information, a change of temporality and depth.
A change that requires adapted tools! In 2010, thanks to the acquisition of Monopresse, a prepress business, Demain Un Autre Jour became visible to major media, establishing itself in the sphere of software providers, particularly through PDF certification. Until the turning point, the decisive chapter... Bruno Génuit recounts: "In 2012-2013, with my associates who are pure developers, true experts in new technologies, we embarked on the realization of a complete editorial system for a regional weekly press group, the Courrier Français."
Melody was born. With the ambition to make it simpler, faster and even better. How did it work? By combining two distinct layers: a CMS, a content management system, and the creation of pages. And by removing one of the obstacles of the actors of the time, the price, thanks to an unbeatable subscription offer.
A headless CMS... but millions of pages !
Melody quickly became an established part of the Weekly Press landscape, accompanying a hundred or so references. The first 1,000 pages produced for Courrier Français were followed by thousands and tens of thousands of news items. Until the millionth, reached in 2020, after having solved the problems of Corse-Matin, a daily newspaper converted to web first thanks to Melody. One million pages produced, 35 sites fed, 1500 weekly users and an increasingly high level of satisfaction...
The secret of this success story? Content. " To design our tool, we sat down with journalists, the very people who inform, tell stories and publish," explains Bruno Génuit.
"Many CMS seem to fulfill their missions, but they often end up imprisoning their users in quasi-insolvable production constraints. With what follows: need to copy and paste between web and print versions, waste of time, lack of fluidity..."
This logic had to be overcome by focusing on content rather than the page and by maximizing the journalist's agility. Thus, with Melody, the journalist can juggle between the versions of his article, see the automated layout, enrich his content thanks to the numerous web tools...
For Melody, a new world to come !
Stories are always more beautiful when you can imagine the continuation. And, for Melody, this continuation goes from Molière to Shakespeare. "The future of Melody lies in conquering the North American market, where we already have a foothold, and the English-speaking press in general, " says Bruno Génuit. "This should enable us to achieve our goal of doubling our sales and increasing our workforce by 50% within three years."
With one thought in mind: "Melody is now reaching a form of maturity and we are ready to take on new challenges. Our know-how in automation and multi-channel publishing means we can now target new markets, such as print content personalization, catalog production or branded content management."
