OREANDA-NEWS.  April 10, 2014. Verizon Digital Media Services and its EdgeCast Device Detection services are providing Refinery29, the largest independent women’s style website in the U.S., with a way to improve the user experience for its millions of mobile users.

The service, part of Verizon EdgeCast’s Optimize suite, moves the intelligence of adapting site behavior for specific devices to the edge of the network, closer to the end user. By integrating advanced device detection, intelligent caching, application acceleration and advanced front-end optimization capabilities directly on edge servers, Verizon is optimizing experiences on every screen while reducing traffic and latency. This gives content publishers the ability to quickly customize the user experience, optimize the content being served, add intelligence to applications, and enhance performance for every type of device -- all without waiting for a distant originating server.

Refinery29, which hosts more than 10 million visitors per month, has a primary audience of millennial women who rely heavily on mobile devices, making it critical to deliver a fast and flawless user experience on every device.

“The EdgeCast Device Detection suite plays a vital role in helping us deliver on our vision for a mobile web experience without compromise,” said Jake McGraw, director of technical operations for Refinery29. “Our mobile audience continues to grow rapidly, so providing visitors with the very best experience has quickly become our core competency. EdgeCast got us there faster than we ever thought possible.”

Optimizing content for different mobile platforms and screen dimensions can be a challenge for publishers, given the influx of new devices, operating systems and technology.  EdgeCast Device Detection leverages ScientiaMobile’s WURFL InFuze and, in conjunction with Verizon’s intelligent edge network, provides customers with highly granular control over how, when and even if content is served.

“Ensuring your site performs well across an ever-expanding list of mobile browsers and device types is a growing challenge,” said James Segil, chief marketing officer for Verizon Digital Media Services. “We assist our clients in creating mobile solutions that deliver personalized experiences to every end user, based on their device, their network and their location.”

EdgeCast Device Detection can determine the vendor, model and operating system of devices accessing a site in order to serve device-specific content and to understand screen dimensions and various hardware attributes. By taking advantage of the latest technologies and understanding the device capabilities, more feature-rich content and an improved experience are enabled, regardless of whether the end user is viewing content on a cellphone or a 60-inch plasma TV.

And because the content is delivered from a server that is much closer to the end user, the wait for a distant originating server is eliminated, and response times for detection and redirection are vastly improved.