9to5mac.com

At the beginning of 2011, while still employed by Fortune Magazine, Seth Weintraub decided it was time to turn his wildly successful hobby project, 9to5Mac, into his focus. The popular Apple news and rumors site was struggling with reliability under the weight of high traffic driven by citations and references in sources ranging from The New York Times to the web’s most popular technology and gadget blogs. Seth also wanted to expand the brand to cover Google and gadget deals. Seth turned to WordPress.com VIP, and VIP introduced Seth to 10up.

The first phase was a WordPress.com VIP-ready relaunch, built for reliability and speed. In addition, the new theme needed to have an adaptable design, such that it could be easily reconfigured by a site administrator to house any9to5 brand. Tack on some Deal News integration, more advanced advertising management, improved social media sharing capabilities, and a few other bells and whistles, and three 9to5 sites—the venerable 9to5Mac along with the brand new 9to5Google and 9to5Toys—were up and running. Since then, 9to5 became a launch partner for Google Currents and continues to not just get some of the best scoops in the business, but continues to have the best track record.