voestalpine in the www and beyond
The first voestalpine Group corporate website appeared in 1996. There were many questions to consider at the time: “Do we need a corporate website?”, “Is the Internet going to catch on?”, “Have we already missed our chance to get on the data highway?” Now, more than 20 years later, we look back at the key milestones in voestalpine AG's online presence during the past two decades.
New visual image for voestalpine
With a newly created visual image, the voestalpine Group is starting a new chapter in its success story. The transformation from a steel company to a global technology and capital goods group will now be visually reflected by the modern corporate design. The new brand image combines tradition with future, replacing the look that has been in place for 12 years.
New look & feel for the voestalpine corporate blog
With the relaunch of the voestalpine corporate blog, the most important content hub after the corporate website, the technology and capital goods group is taking another step in its forward-looking communications strategy.
Innovation as the origin of voestalpine social media activities
Andrea Zajicek was Online & Social Media Manager at the voestalpine Group from 2007 to 2013. On the occasion of 20 years of the corporate website, Andrea offers her insights into the greatest challenges, the most important projects, and the changes which characterized her time in this role.
From paper to international online & social media presence
Gerhard Kürner began his career at the voestalpine Group as Group Content Manager in 2001, and was responsible for the Group's first unified internet presence. On the occasion of 20 years of the corporate website he talks to us about key milestones and the digital transformation.
For us, as a long term partner of voestalpine, it is an enrichment to see the brave steps taken by the company in the digital world.
voestalpine on the WWW—20 years of the corporate website
The first voestalpine Group corporate website appeared in 1996. There were many questions to consider at the time: “Do we need a corporate website?”, “Is the Internet going to catch on?”, “Have we already missed our chance to get on the data highway?” Now, more than 20 years later, we look back at the key milestones in voestalpine AG's online presence during this period.
Online & social media is a key communication instrument for the voestalpine Group. This is evidenced not least by the large number of digital communication activities consistently implemented over the past years, including 20 years of the website and 10 years of social media management. Digital communication has allowed us to reach many additional dialog groups around the world, and to decisively shape the story of our development from steel producer to a successful international technology group.
The first few re-designed Company Websites online
The first few Company Websites are now online in our new system (eg. voestalpine Rohstoffbeschaffung & voestalpine Krems Finaltechnik)
Nomination as Social Media Team of the Year
The online and social media team was shortlisted for the German Prize for Online Communications as well as for the Digital Communications Award 2016.
The most important success factors at voestalpine are, above all, a dedicated team and the company’s commitment to use social media as a key communication instrument.
“Fresh up” of Corporate Website & Company Websites
The Corporate Website was, first and foremost, technologically optimized. Also, the visual appearance was adapted to fulfil the newest requirements. 50 additional Company Websites will follow in the next few months.
New exhibition website for voestalpine now online
voestalpine is exhibiting at around 150 exhibitions and conferences worldwide. A new website now provides an overview of the most important exhibitions, focal topics and participating companies.
Mobile usage
For the first time mobile internet access exceeds desktop access (study by market researcher Statcounter).
voestalpine celebrates
20 years on the stock exchange with numerous activities20 years ago, on October 9, 1995, the voestalpine share was listed for the first time on the stock exchange. This special anniversary is marked by a special communication campaign.
Blogger and instagrammer event: Online community celebrates 20 years on the stock exchange
To celebrate the anniversary ‘20 years on the stock exchange,’ the Online & Social Media Team invited their online community to attend an exclusive blogger and instagrammer event on October 2, 2015 in the voestalpine Stahlwelt.
Newly designed Apprentices‘ Website online
A newly structured design now offers the possibility to gain an even more comprehensive insight into the apprenticeship programs within the group and to get to know the organization as well as its sites and companies in more detail.
Launch of a Social Media Newsroom
The Corporate Website has recently been updated to include a social media newsroom. This newsroom presents voestalpine social media activities and also gives you an overview of contents from the online world.
Online job portal optimized for all devices
The online job portal of voestalpine has been updated to responsive design with April 23. This means that in the future the content will adapt to all devices (smartphone, tablet & desktop computer).
voestalpine corporate website optimized for all devices
The voestalpine AG corporate website has been recently updated to “responsive design.” Now, the view of the website’s pages is optimized for all devices, whether a desktop, a smartphone, or a tablet.
Apple Watch
The Apple Smartwatch is announced on September 9, 2014, and is available from April 2015.
Thematic focus of the voestalpine Klangwolke 2014
voestalpine provided information on this topic in the run up to the event, with an interactive map containing reports, interviews, and images of the voestalpine sites located in the Danube countries close to the river.
“Smeil 2014“ Award for the Corporate Blog:
The voestalpine Corporate Blog was named winner of the corporate category at the finance blog award “Smeil 2014”.
voestalpine attracts interest with its “unexpected” brand platform
Following the launch of voestalpine’s image and brand campaign in October 2012, the new “voestalpine unexpected” brand platform puts even greater focus on the company’s people and faces.
voestalpine Website was awarded the Steel Award “Steelie”
At the 47th annual steel industry conference, the World Steel Association (worldsteel) hosted its fourth Steel Awards ceremony. The voestalpine Corporate Website has won the “Steelie“ award.
voestalpine uses Landing Pages to focus on the Topic of Internationalization.
The online presence of voestalpine was expanded: Landing Pages in 10 languages are expected to appeal to a larger community and provide it with basic information about the group.
voestalpine goes 4 gold—Digital Communication Award
On September 20, 2013, voestalpine was awarded the Digital Communication Award in the Corporate Weblog category for the voestalpine WM Blog.
Flashmob for the voestalpine Klangwolke 2013: “Dancing Flashlight”
Social Media Stategy 2013
voestalpine has been using its social media platforms for 4 years and has continuously been expanding its strategy.
New Design and a new Structure for the Corporate Blog.
In September, the Corporate Blog went online with a new structure and a new design. The blog serves as an ideal addition to voestalpine’s social media activities by rounding them off.
First voestalpine Onliner Day in Linz
At the first voestalpine Onliner Day, 83 online experts from the voestalpine Group met at voestalpine Stahlwelt and discussed current trends and developments.
Start of the voestalpine WM Blog
How does a B2B company feasibly use the emotions of the winter sports event of the year? As part of the sponsoring of the FIS Alpine Skiing World Championships 2013 in Schladming, voestalpine AG created its own platform, the voestalpine WM Blog, and handed over the coverage to two skiing enthusiasts from the target group. Supported by a camera man and with exclusive access, the reporters covered the background stories of the world championships: From the visit to the stable housing the horses that appeared during the opening ceremony, to an interview with world champion Marcel Hirscher’s service assistant, to the competition between fan clubs – the two bloggers were at the center of the action.
voestalpine took part in worldsteel's first Twitter debate
worldsteel, the World Steel Association, held its first Twitter debate. The debate coincided with the launch of "The white book of steel", a worldsteel publication. Wolfgang Eder, voestalpine CEO, and Peter Schwab, Head of R&D at voestalpine, both took part.
Wikileaks
A whistleblower offers a glimpse into the extent of global surveillance and espionage activities.
Social Media Manual
The voestalpine Social Media Manual is a guideline for all employees and provides general information about social media and seven principles for dealing with social media.
Apprentices‘ Website & steel sounds
In the fall of 2012, voestalpine started its own apprentices‘ website and a Facebook career page in order to provide interested youths with wide-ranging information on educational and career opportunities. The launch of the new pages was accompanied by the steel-sounds campaign.
Facebook records 1 billion active users.
Social Media @ voestalpine: How it all began...
voestalpine wins „Steelie“ Award for best website
Digitalks
In a three-part series of voestalpine presentations, a number of experts talked about the topic of social media and its effects on the organization.
Google+
Google+ starts up as a social network.
Snapchat
Snapchat starts, an instant messaging application in which posted messages are deleted after a short time.
voestalpine launches Magazine App
Energy, mobility, research and development and many more topics are dealt with in the online magazine. Beside current news and events, the app contained a map that showed the R&D locations all over Europe. In addition, one’s own knowledge could be tested with an interactive quiz on different focal topics.
iPad
Steve Jobs presents the first iPad on January 27, 2010.
„It is very important how appealing the home page is to the visitor. From it he derives his overall image of the company.” voestalpine Online Manager Andrea Zajicek about the re-launch of the corporate website.
voestalpine surpasses 2,000 Fans on Facebook
voestalpine is the only well-known B2B company that presents itself on social media. At the moment, voestalpine has over 2,000 fans on Facebook - with an upward tendency. The other channels such as YouTube, Twitter etc. are
Social media platform Instagram is launched, allowing users to share photos and short videos.
Innovation blog—from “innovation” to “corporate” blog
The innovation blog was launched on October 1, 2009, at the Synergy Platform 2009 research conference. Many years and advances later it became the corporate blog which, together with the corporate website, is the most important content hub for online and social media activities at the voestalpine Group.
voestalpine active in Web 2.0
In 2009 voestalpine was one of Austria's first B2B enterprises to launch its own social media presence. An initial phase of learning by doing has developed into a long-term, Group-wide, and international social media strategy which is a core element of corporate communications
WhatsApp Inc. is founded.
A new design for www.voestalpine.com
As of today, www.voestalpine.com is presented in a new, more modern design. Major changes have been made to the structure of the home page, the product information center and the navigation.
Android
Google launches Android, a competitor to the iPhone.
End of Netscape
Work on Internet pioneer Netscape is discontinued.
App Store
Apple is the first manufacturer to operate an online sales platform for application programs (“App Store”).
First iPhone
Apple presents the first iPhone; the iPhone and the iOS operating system make mobile surfing popular.
The website of voestalpine is given a new layout.
New portal, new structure and new design
At the end of April, a completely new portal went online. There was a completely new look, and the content was also changed to present the voestalpine Group in a dynamic way. “We are a modern high-tech company and that is just how we want to present ourselves. We have a strong voestalpine brand name and our corporate organization specializes in a wide variety of fields," said the responsible content manager at the time.
The true "revolution" in contrast with the previous Internet pages was in the manner in which voestalpine presented the product information. Comprehensive Internet search engines used to find information about the most important products and services were first provided by the Product Information Center (PIC).
The start of Twitter, the first “microblogging” service. Twitter allows users to share messages no longer than 140 characters in length.
Spotify
Spotify is a music streaming service which enables users to listen to DRM-protected music over the Internet. Today the service is available in over 55 countries.
voestalpine MAGAZIN online
The online version of the voestalpine Magazine was published online for the first time in February of 2005. On the one hand, the website was the official home page of the printed version of the voestalpine customer magazine with comprehensive services and information about the publication. On the other hand, it was an independent online medium with five theme-based channels and numerous interactive features, e.g. article voting. One of the objectives of the online version of voestalpine Magazine was to attract new target groups and to offer additional interesting reading material 365 days a year to those who subscribed to the printed version and received it each time the printed came out on a bi-annual basis.
Web 2.0
The term “Web 2.0” is coined by Tim O’Reilly. It stands for new technologies and applications which allow users to collaborate online.
Youtube
YouTube, the platform for uploading and sharing videos, is founded.
This is what the website of voestalpine AG looked like in October 2004.
Flickr
Flickr appears as a service designed for uploading and sharing images.
In 2003 Mark Zuckerberg developed the website facemash.com, the precursor to Facebook. Facebook starts in 2004.
Screenshot of the website from February 2003.
Skype
Skype is founded and makes Internet telephony popular.
LinkedIn and Myspace
MySpace is one of the first social networks to appear. During its early phase it attracts up to 230,000 members a day.
LinkedIn is also founded this year, and is the first platform designed for professional people.
Wordpress
With the appearance of Wordpress in 2003 software is now available to make blogging easier and more significant.
New Internet address www.voestalpine.com
The www.voestalpine.com portal went online 2001. The Content Management System (CMS), a software for creating and editing content, was programmed internally. The online presence of voestalpine included a total of fifty websites with far more than 20,000 individual pages. As one of the first companies in Austria at the time, voestalpine offered a service that texted newsletters to subscribers' cell phones and published an e-mail newsletter. Additional website features included a virtual works tour with 360° 3D images, a share monitor with an up-to-the-minute stock rate and a multimedia journey through the history of the Group.
As Group Content Manager – a term that always was and still is quite en vogue – my main challenges lay in developing an online portal without a computer, as it only arrived three weeks after I started working here. When I asked what I should do until then, I was told: work! Nevertheless, we were able to lay the foundation for the importance of a digital communications strategy in the voestalpine group.
Wikipedia
Jimmy Wales starts the Wikipedia project: a free online encyclopedia to which everyone can contribute.
www.voest-stahlhandel.at
With the steel trading page www.voest-stahlhandel.at on the internet, voestalpine takes its next step in the area of e-commerce as well as in long term customer retention and strategic alignment.
Dot-Com bubble
End of the dotcom boom: the Internet bubble bursts and technology share prices plummet. This is triggered by the bankruptcy of online retailer Boo.com.
RSS
RSS technology allows users to subscribe to website content.
VOEST-ALPINE STAHL AG will soon be reachable via the domain www.voest-apline-stahlag.com.
Napster
Start of the Napster platform, designed for (illegally) swapping music. After legal disputes with the music industry, the service is closed down in 2001.
WAP
WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) technology enables mobile telephony.
The company Google is founded, together with its eponymous search engine.
ICANN
The US government transfers the administration of domain addresses to ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
First Blog
Jørn Barger coins the term “weblog”—a composite of the words “web” and “log”—with his Robert Wisdom page.
The website goes online with a new design
The first re-launch of the corporate website already took place in July 1997.
VOEST-ALPINE STAHL AG launches its first corporate website under the domain http://www.voest.co.at.
ICQ
Start of the first ICQ software from Israeli start-up Mirabilis.