Would love to be able to feature short video clips/loops or even gif files as cover art to be used in the longform presentation. Would this be possible?

Due to past experiences with spam and trolls, we have to moderate calendar submissions. 

It would be great if there was a way to whitelist particular users that we know post events that do not violate any site policies. These include local service organizations, churches, community groups, etc. Being whitelisted would auto-approve their events and bypass the queue for unapproved events.

MAIN POINT: Ad blocking is a rapidly growing problem, and TownNews's Ad Blocker Detection tool needs to be more usable by all clients, regardless of their subscription model (or lack thereof).

We're trying to implement Ad Blocker Detection on our site, but we don't currently have a subscriber model we're ready to pursue (we're free-to-read, and our competitor uses a pretty strict paywall, so this has been our competitive advantage and we've grown dramatically as a result).

But TN support tells us the Ad Blocker Detection tool requires subscription integration in order to work.

I understand the rationale behind tying Ad Blocker Detection to subscriptions, but that's very limiting and I think unnecessary. I'd like to see Ad Blocker Detection work, period, regardless of subscription integration. Then websites that want a premium subscription model that doesn't show ads and allows ad blocking could have that too.

Webinar recording now available.

At our June customer webinar, Susan Bell, senior product manager for TownNews, showed off the latest redesign of the BLOX Now mobile app. This major update bundles a variety of fantastic new features, design layouts, card styles, and more.

Topics included:

• All-new personalization features and behavioral recommendations
• Innovative new “Continue Watching” functionality lets users start a video on one device, pick up where they left off on another
• A completely revamped user interface for iPads and Android tablets
• Tons of additional card styles to help you show off your content
• A modern “flat” design option that you can enable with the flip of a switch
• . . . and much more!

The results of poll questions are no longer visible on our website. Can someone please advise

We are moving to an umbrella site and found out that this will cause all our sites to have a url with the base site.  For example our TV station is currently bgdailynews.com/wdnz instead of wdnz.com.  That address will take you there but we would like the browser window to show wdnz.com.  TownNews has told us they don't have a way to provide masking to accomplish this.  Has anyone found a way to do it on their own?

So let me pose this scenario:

We've got a story on our the site. Let's say the New Orleans Saints are making roster cuts on deadline day. Our guys are updating their story w/ new player names every couple of minutes. The story tells readers to 'check back frequently' or 'reload the page' for the latest info. How can we best display this info in BLOX so that people who visit a page frequently during a breaking story actually see the most up-to-date info?

Hello.  I wanted to find out how TownNews and TownNews sites are planning to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act. Enforcement begins July 1. The easy part looks like updating our privacy policy but the nightmare looks to be how we will respond to requests to provide site visitors with information about how their personal information -- everything from email address to I.P. address -- has been been collected and sold and shared with third parties.  TownNews back in January said it was looking at potential solutions. Can the company share any details at this point? Would these solutions help with complying for requests with this information. 

Webinar recording now available

At our May 2020 customer webinar, Rick Rogers, chief revenue officer at TownNews, and Richard Green, CEO of Evvnt gave an overview of the new Evvnt calendar integration that we’ll be rolling out over the coming months.
Download PDF Webinar slide deck: Introducing Evvnt

While in-person local events are on pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we want to use this time to roll out Evvnt’s calendar platform on behalf of our partners. When local events return to our communities, the TownNews-Evvnt calendar partnership will provide our local media partners the best tools to showcase and monetize their calendar listings.

Topics included:

• Details about the calendar migration time frame and process.
• Ideas for generating new advertising revenue with local events.
• Examples of our Evvnt integration in action and peak behind the scenes.
• . . . and much more!

Ready to get started? Watch it now.

Curious if any sites are having success with doing paid advertorials or sponsored articles, and if so, how do you separate them from news content or do you have a specific place on site where they are placed?

Had a new question from a reader we haven't gotten before. They wanted a way to specifically search through user comments across the site.

Has this ever been considered before?

Making a feature request for the ability to have the purchase subscription page also capture account (login) creation information and establish that user profile in a singe step-page-process ... thus eliminating the multi-step process of a site visitor having to first create an account before he/she can actually purchase a subscription.

This would enhance the user experience and eliminate a bottleneck/bail out point in the subscriber acquisition process.

Please support this post so it climbs the feature request ladder faster.

Thanks!

Hello.If we migrate to the new Evvnt Calendar, will we still be able to embed events into individual articles and newsletters? Would we still set the price for upsells? 

Hi everyone!

We are looking for someone to beta test two urgent initiatives we are working on…

Firstly, a “Support Local Journalism” page which will ask readers to contribute money or subscribe in order to support journalism during this time. It can be paired with messaging throughout the site that says something like, “We are providing coronavirus coverage without a subscription out of public interest.” And then a link to contribute or subscribe if they want to help.

Secondly, we have a new Photo Sales vendor (Fotomoto) to replace the other one, which is currently down.

If you are interested in helping with either - or both - initiatives, we just need a site for testing, and some of your time to provide feedback.

Each of these items will require some minor set up on your side, such as creating a new account with Fotomoto and Donorbox.org, and possibly connecting a Paypal or Stripe account for payments.

I realize this is a crazy time, but if you feel you have the time to help us test these things, we can do almost all of the work (except for setting up the accounts and reviewing the work) for you!

Let me know if you are interested!