Wellington firms race to develop website for Nascar and Toyota

Reuters

HIGH SPEED: Nascar's Wellington-designed site attracted 24,000 visitors a minute at its peak.

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It's been life in the fast lane for two Wellington firms charged with developing a high-profile website for Nascar and Toyota.

Global advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi commissioned local web development firms Resn and 3months to create the site, which lets visitors design their own race cars for the Nascar Sprint Cup series.

Toyota plans to re-create the best design, which will be used as the pace car for the Sprint Cup All-Star Race next month.

3months projects director Shanan Holm says the website was promoted through television commercials in the United States and at its peak was attracting 24,000 page views a minute.

Almost 60,000 people had submitted designs and more than a million site visitors had voted midway through the competition.

Resn developed the Flash interface for the site, while 3months built the engine behind it – which manages entrants' designs and voting data – using the Ruby on Rails web development framework, which allows websites to be developed at high-speed, he says.

3months director Mark Pascall says it has had inquiries from potential customers in the United States since the site went live.

"It's a big deal for two little companies in Wellington to get involved in a project of this scale."

3months has just developed a mobile phone version of Consumer NZ's website that lets smartphone owners who are Consumer NZ members see its product recommendations while on the go.

Consumer NZ chief executive Sue Chetwin says members were increasingly asking if they could access recommendations while out shopping, and visits to the standard Consumer NZ website from mobiles had jumped by 50 per cent in three months.

- © Fairfax NZ News