About JOE Media Group
Founded in Ireland in 2010, JOE Media Group is a prominent digital publisher recognized for its engaging and diverse content aimed at young adults, particularly men aged 18-35. The company operates several popular brands such as JOE, SportsJOE, Her, Lovin, The London Economic, and Gay Star News. These brands cover a wide range of topics such as sports, entertainment, news, politics, lifestyle, and technology, delivering content that resonates with its audience’s interests and passions.
Building on its success in Ireland, JOE Media Group quickly expanded to the United Kingdom where it quickly gained a substantial following through its “social-first” content strategy, particularly excelling in creating viral videos and engaging social media content. Leveraging this growth and the ability to captivate audiences, JOE Media Group has established itself as a key player in the digital media landscape.
Overcoming Growth Challenges
As JOE Media Group expanded, optimizing their technological infrastructure to handle increased traffic and maintain high performance became essential. The company needed a solution that offered cost optimization, scalability, and flexibility to support their growing audience and content demands. Initially, JOE Media Group relied heavily on external agencies for hosting, development, and maintenance of their websites. However, this approach became increasingly less economical and strategic as the number of sites and the complexity of their digital ecosystem grew.
When I joined JOE Media Group, one of my primary goals was to bring all our websites in-house. Ymir’s serverless architecture for WordPress made perfect sense, offering potential cost optimization and the flexibility we needed. Switching to serverless brings clear cost and performance benefits due to its ability to scale and handle traffic spikes seamlessly.
– Ryan Jarrett, Head of Tech, JOE Media Group
Recognizing the need for a more sustainable solution, Ryan Jarrett, Head of Tech at JOE Media Group, aimed to bring all their websites in-house. Despite his strong technological background and understanding of WordPress, Ryan needed a solution to bring in strong DevOps and cloud infrastructure management experience without necessitating a significant increase in staffing. The goal was to find a more economical and strategic approach to manage their technological needs, which led JOE Media Group to explore the serverless WordPress architecture managed by the Ymir platform. This promised to deliver the required cost efficiency, performance improvements, and operational flexibility to sustain their growth and enhance their digital presence.
Embracing Serverless with Ymir
To address the infrastructure challenges and support their growing digital presence, JOE Media Group turned to Ymir’s serverless architecture for WordPress. This decision was driven by the need for a cost-effective, scalable, and flexible solution that could handle the increased traffic and performance demands of their numerous content-led sites. The serverless infrastructure managed by Ymir offered clear cost and performance benefits by eliminating the need for traditional server management and allowing the company to scale seamlessly with traffic spikes, such as a recent peak of 2,300 concurrent users in 60 seconds. This shift enabled JOE Media Group to focus more on application development rather than on the complexities of infrastructure management.
Ryan Jarrett, Head of Tech at JOE Media Group, recognized that transitioning to a serverless setup would also bring operational efficiency. By adopting Ymir to manage its serverless infrastructure, JOE Media Group could avoid the significant staffing increases typically associated with in-house infrastructure management. The serverless architecture abstracted much of the infrastructure configuration and maintenance, reducing the technical overhead and allowing the tech team to concentrate on developing new and innovative content for their audience. This transition was crucial in making the company’s operations more agile and responsive to business needs, ultimately enhancing their ability to deliver high-quality digital experiences.
Moreover, using Ymir brought additional benefits that greatly improved JOE Media Group’s technological capabilities. The DevOps capabilities of the Ymir platform enabled the company to set up an efficient CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions, reducing the average deployment time to under 4 minutes. The consistent and predictable environments offered by Ymir reduced the occurrence of environment-specific issues, leading to more reliable operations. These benefits allowed the tech team to concentrate on strategic initiatives and content development, driving further growth and innovation for JOE Media Group.
Poised for the Future
Transitioning to Ymir’s serverless DevOps platform has profoundly impacted JOE Media Group’s operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The shift to serverless architecture has allowed JOE Media Group to reduce its reliance on external agencies, resulting in substantial cost savings and improved scalability. This dynamic scaling capability has ensured that JOE Media Group can handle traffic surges effortlessly, providing a reliable user experience even during peak times. Notably, 30-day user retention doubled, highlighting the improved user experience and engagement. This efficiency has enabled the tech team to concentrate on content innovation and strategic initiatives.
Furthermore, Ymir’s solution has significantly enhanced JOE Media Group’s development workflow. The streamlined CI/CD pipeline with GitHub has accelerated deployments, making the process more efficient and reducing the time-to-market for new updates. Consistent and predictable environments have minimized technical challenges, fostering a more agile and adaptive approach to technological needs. In summary, Ymir’s serverless platform has positioned JOE Media Group for sustained growth and innovation, allowing them to deliver superior digital experiences and stay ahead in the competitive media landscape.
About Ymir
Ymir is a serverless DevOps platform for WordPress. It enables businesses to build, deploy, and manage WordPress sites with serverless infrastructure, providing cost efficiency, scalability, and operational flexibility.