The Hollywood Reporter
Digital Transformation (Spring 2013)
Recruited as the first hire for The Hollywood Reporter’s in-house digital team, D.B. earned the nickname “Captain Kirk” for his fearless, decisive leadership. Hired on the spot by Digital Director John Marchesini within 30 minutes of their initial conversation, D.B. quickly identified and tackled the complex challenges facing the organization.
An 80+ year old print publication, The Hollywood Reporter was hindered by internal conflicts, siloed teams, and outdated stakeholder mindsets, which limited effective digital execution.
Additionally, a $90K Lullabot site audit revealed that over 90% of technical issues stemmed from bloated, non-standards-compliant front-end code delivered by offshore developers. This caused critical issues, such as breaking news articles briefly ranking on Google before being outpaced by competitors like Deadline and Variety— disappearing without a trace.
In D.B.’s first 30 days, he focused on optimizing THR’s Mobify mobile site, addressing spaghetti code
that caused unreliable content targeting and disjointed User Interfaces. His approach included:
- Identifying reliable container elements for consistent performance across site segments.
- Prioritizing source ordering of third-party integrations (ads, content discovery, analytics, etc.).
- Implementing modern CSS to reduce network requests and file sizes.
This ignited D.B.’s passion for web performance, leading to further successes in delivering high-profile features like the “Pret-a-Reporter” style section redesign, “Oscars Contenders,” and “Power Listacles.” By the final quarter of his contract, D.B. was granted full autonomy to focus on performance-driven initiatives.
Key Challenges:
- Bloated, non-compliant offshore code causing performance issues
- Unreliable mobile site functionality and poor search visibility
- Internal red tape and siloed teams impeding collaboration
- Outdated stakeholder perspectives on web strategy
Technical Stack:
- Google DoubleClick for Publishers (ad ops), SailThru (newsletters/email subscriptions), Google Analytics with custom tracking
- Mobify (mobile site), Kargo (ad-integrated mobile replacement)
- jQuery, Vanilla JavaScript
- SCSS, CSS Sprites
- Drupal 6, PHP
Delivered:
A high-performance, user-friendly mobile and desktop experience with optimized load times, enhanced usability, and improved search engine visibility.
Outcome:
Mobile traffic increased by 30% in the first 30 days, Alexa global site ranking improved tenfold in under 12 months, and article indexing on Google and other SERPs became consistently “sticky.” Desktop load speeds were halved, dropping from 12 to 6 seconds, significantly boosting user engagement and site performance.