Alpha Launch of UX13
Today we announce the launch of Alpha testing for our new User Interface.
If you are interested, please contact us at hello@juicyads.com to get access to this long-awaited upgrade. We ask that you report any problems and bugs to us as you discover it.
It was the same night that JuicyAds won two XBIZ HONORS awards that I first got Alpha access to the new JuicyAds user Interface for testing. We received the awards for Traffic Service of the Year 2020, and Senior Leadership Award for our associate, Rainey. While its true that we win a lot of awards (we have been named by XBIZ as Traffic Service Company of the Year a total of 6 times) we have continued to innovate mostly behind-the-scenes at JuicyAds and take significant care to ensure our clients are treated right, rather than make the interface more pretty. Much to the chagrin of our loyal users who have been long asking for something sleek and sexy to match The Sexy Advertising Network.
Now, almost a year later after hundreds of bug fixes and an epic week after being named “Best Traffic Services Company” and my personal induction into the YNOT Hall of Fame (it only took 21 years of working in the industry) it is finally time to release our new UX13 platform to Alpha testers.
Now, back to the nostalgia ..
Many are unaware that JuicyAds was initially built by a single coder (me, the founder). The original interface design dates back to 2006 when I was still doing most of the programming and development on the platform personally. Over the years, more and more sections and features were “bolted on” so we could continue to move as quickly as possible. Back then, we were one of the first adult advertising networks but since then there’s been an explosion of new networks that come and go like the wind, but we have remained for almost 15 years. It feels like our Legacy interface is just as old, mostly because it is. I’ll be the first to admit I was a good Publisher (I ran TGPs at the beginning of my career) but I was less than a great designer. Old areas of our interface stagnated and looked much the same as they did a decade earlier — until now.
The fact is, our journey to build the new User Experience (UX) began several years ago.
Lots of people complained about the old interface. There were some very colorful and rude comments over the years, and were taken mostly as constructive criticism to make the new platform stronger. In hindsight, it was the comments that suggested (or stated outright) that we didn’t “care” that hurt the most. The fact was, the opposite was true. We cared a lot (myself probably most of all) and found it frustrating that we were moving as quickly as we could on the first rebuild. All we could do was tell people it was coming — until it wasn’t.
It was a tough day when development on the JuicyAds redesign named “v2” was halted. It had been several years and a small fortune spent on it, but the team just wasn’t making enough progress and the quality of the interface was poor. We opened up the completed sections for Beta testing, but most of the functionality was only valuable to our Advertisers for PopUnders. But, development ended and the code was destined to be entirely scrapped. Almost the entire team was fired.
It was difficult to cut losses and start over after the first redesign attempt. The strategy was to re-hire a better team and re-build from scratch, and I would oversee the entire project to make sure that this time, we would get it right. After almost a year, we started again. There were stumbles at the start and I remember thinking to myself “not again.” But this time we would not walk away until it was done. That meant going over every page, every feature, every button, and every snippet of text. It was a ton of work, much more than you can imagine.
Starting around March 2019, we began calling the rebuild “UX13” because its development began in our 13th year of business. The goal was to redesign and build a good foundation. There would be no new features in UX13 to ensure we got completed. Subsequent builds will be much faster now and we will be able to roll out new functionality every quarter.
That “short version” brings us today.
The Marketplace and Banner sections are almost entirely complete. The Pops Management area (for Publishers and Advertisers) are still being merged but legacy functionality is active. Desktop functionality is the cleanest, and mobile optimization is ongoing. As of this writing, there are still a few dozen known bugs and issues on the banner side, but none that are so critical to stop the Alpha release.
Our plan is to test with our initial Alphas, then move into Beta testing with new clients and those that wish to use it. Eventually, we will shut down the legacy interface entirely and take the biggest permanent step forward we have ever taken.
Keep it juicy.
