Subscribe to Our Newsletter

x

How 7x7 Went From Beloved Print Magazine To Modern Digital Publisher

A swift upgrade.

The Vision

As the #1 lifestyle site in the major tech market of San Francisco, 7x7 was on a mission to bring asuper-modern, tech-driven editorial experience to audiences, no matter where they are.

The Problem

Having a publishing platform that was built in the Internet Stone Age. What was considered cutting-edge in 2006 just didn't cut it anymore. The out-dated, glitchy CMS was difficult for editors to use and clunky for audiences to read through, making it a constant effort to provide up-to-the-minute Bay Area stories and happenings.

What Happened: The RebelMouse DCMS

In June 2016, 7x7 introduced the new and vastly improved site on with Rebel Runner, which provided them with a highly-optimized and super-intuitive platform.

Here's what 7x7 expressed to their readers when they launched the new site:

" Not only is our new site prettier to look at (bigger pictures! working slideshows!), it is also better organized (now by Bay Area region to help you find things to do based on where you really live, work, and play); loaded with nifty features (polls! videos! gifs!); optimized for reading on your desktop, smartphone, and tablet; and designed for easy sharing of the stories and photos you like via your chosen social networks."

7x7 (homepage) on the old platform


7x7 (homepage) on RebelMouse

7x7 (article page) on RebelMouse


Key Takeaway: Monetization Gets An Upgrade, Too!

While enhancing the editorial experience was a priority, 7x7's monetization process also needed an upgrade. As a premier editorial site with 7M monthly impressions and growing, 7x7 can command top advertising dollars.

With the Rebel Runner platform, not only has ad targeting and placement become much more flexible and easy to implement, but the improved native content offering continues to make it a must-buy for Fortune 500 advertisers like Google, Audi, Chase and Macy's.

To summarize, upgrade.

Check out 7x7 and learn more about the RebelMouse DCMS.

Want to upgrade your content game and become a Rebel? Contact us today to get started.

Particle Assembler: Ads in Slideshows Now Supported

You can now insert ads between slides in a slideshow!

Monetizing users' engagement and page views is pivotal to most digital businesses, and our Particle Assembler has been an invaluable tool in helping RebelMouse clients to insert native ads seamlessly into their content. Now we've taken this functionality one step further by introducing support for ads between slides in Assembler's slideshow layout.

Keep reading... Show less

Inside RebelMouse’s Quality Assurance Operations

How We've Perfected Stress-Free Publishing

At RebelMouse, we like to refer to our enterprise publishing platform as "lean tech." Most publishers have a natural inclination to start doubling down on teams of developers who try to build unique experiences to help stand out above the noise. But they should actually be doing the opposite: Lean tech is the preferred way to cut through content saturation. By allowing RebelMouse to obsess over your product, content producers, editors, managers, and everyone in between can focus on creating quality content and taking advantage of opportunities to leverage distributive publishing strategies that create real revenue growth.

One of the major reasons we're able to maintain a lean tech environment is thanks to our approach to quality assurance (QA). We make updates to our platform daily to ensure our clients always have access to the most robust, high-performing, and secure version of our platform. Behind the scenes, this means having a solid QA structure that's efficient, creates less bugs, and catches the ones that do pop up before they go live. It's a system of checks and balances that's hard and costly to replicate on a custom CMS. Here's a glimpse into how it works.

Our Tech Stack Toolbox

  • Cucumber
  • Java
  • Junit
  • Maven
  • Selenium WebDriver
  • TeamCity
  • Zalenium (Selenium Grid)

Our Checks and Balances Workflow

Automated Regression Testing Cycle

The Lifecycle of a Product Update

When an update is first made to RebelMouse, TeamCity immediately triggers the start of automated tests to review integrity.

TeamCity Build

TeamCity Agent

The tests run in parallel on TeamCity's Build Agent. Next, Zalenium creates docker containers with browsers that matches the count of parallel threads. An Allure report is then generated from the test results, which shows the state of the application after the update.

Allure Report Pass

If a test doesn't complete successfully, the testing framework receives a video with a failed test and attaches it to the Allure report.

Allure Report Issue

Based on the report analysis, a QA specialist will create a "bug" ticket in our product management software to address the issue if needed. Then, information about the bug is immediately sent to the project manager and we begin the process of correcting the problem.

The media powerhouses we power can publish with confidence knowing that any product issues that arise are met with a tried-and-true process to fix the problem with little-to-no disturbance to their workflow. If you have any questions about this process, please email support@rebelmouse.com.

Related Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

The Difference Between Subdomains and Subfolders

If you're looking to have RebelMouse power only a portion of your site, you can set up either a subdomain or subfolder.

If you're looking to have RebelMouse power only a portion of your site, you can set up either a subdomain or subfolder. This is a choice your team will have to make as you replatform and optimize your content, so it's important to understand the distinction between the two.

Subdomains

A subdomain is a subdivision of an existing domain: For example, apis.rebelmouse.com (subdomain of rebelmouse.com) and hub.united.com (subdomain of united.com) are both examples of subdomain structures. Launching a subdomain on RebelMouse is simple and straightforward for your tech team, and usually doesn't entail much extra work.

Subfolders

Creating a subfolder is a bit different. A subfolder is a URL structure such as FSAStore.com/learn. It's easier to think of subfolders as subsections of your site. This work generally takes about 10 service hours for our team to configure for you.

To launch a new property using a subfolder setup, RebelMouse provides you with technical strategy, direction, and advice on how to configure it properly. For search engine optimization purposes (SEO), using subfolders is the most optimal setup, but the SEO improvement can be minor. As long as the content on the main domain and subdomain interlink, there's not much to worry about if you need to use a subdomain setup. We accomplish the correct connections between both through JSON and feed integrations.

If you have any questions about the difference between subdomains and subfolders, email support@rebelmouse.com.

Related Posts vs. Posts in Assembler

Here's the difference between Related Posts and Posts in Assembler.

By using Related Posts and Posts in Assembler, you can help your audience stay engaged with your site's content and generate more traffic. Both of these features can be added to any post through Entry Editor.

When creating or editing a post, you can add a Related Posts section to the bottom of it that consists of a selection of existing posts on your site that you choose to surface. Only the main image and content headline are pulled, along with a link to the original post. This is similar to the Around the Web section that also shows up at the end of your post when you enable it from the SEO tab of Entry Editor.

Keep reading... Show less
Subscribe to Our Newsletter