Welcome to the BLOX Digital (formerly TownNews) customer community! Connect with other BLOX Digital customers—and with us—to suggest features, share best practices and ask questions.

Though BLOX Digital representatives often participate in discussions, this is not a customer service site. For immediate help, call 800-293-9576 or submit a support request via our online ticketing system.

+1

Omit categories of items from search

KetchikanJ 4 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 4 years ago 0

An option to prevent the following from appearing in blank/null searches 

or searches including Articles + Images: 

• Photos that are both child assets and don't have a section tag assigned to them •


Image 674


----------------------------------------------

1. What problem(s) does this idea solve?

1a•

Prevents duplicate photo resources from being displayed (often alongside each other) in searches. 


2a•

There are photo child assets that are technically required to have titles, those are usually the assets whose titles we want the least visible. Asset titles are effectively hidden unless a search is performed.

2. How often would you use this feature?

2a•

When I run a blank/null search to chronologically see what users will see.


2b•

I sometimes direct users to blank/null searches when they want to see a chronological list of content.

3. How many people in your organization would use this feature?

3a•

I would likely be the only one internally.

0

Flex search utility not indexing authors

Eman Elshahawy 4 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

There's currently no feature that allows author names of articles to be indexed by the search utility. It only works if the byline is entered in manually as opposed to adding an author by registered user account with the CMS. The only way to access a curation of all of the author's articles is to find an article they wrote and click on their author name, where it prompts to a url address like this www.siteaddress.com/users/profile/authorfirstname%20lastname/

0
Under review

Staff Directories / Newsletter sign up pages

Crindalyn Lyster 5 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Thomas Martinez 4 years ago 8

Does anyone have examples of staff directory pages they've created outside of static HTML pages on their sites? How about newsletter list landing pages that are more than the out of the box "list" of newsletters available. 

0
Completed

Webinar | Tips and resources for weathering the coronavirus crisis

Cherry Wolf (Marketing specialist) 5 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 5 years ago 1

Webinar recording now available.

At this special webinar, the TownNews team shared ideas and best practices for serving your audience and generating revenue during the coronavirus pandemic.


Image 673

Topics included:

  • How to quickly build a high-traffic special section to cover breaking news with BLOX CMS.
  • Leveraging the TownNews Content Exchange Network to augment your local coronavirus coverage with nationwide content.
  • Using subscription rules to disable your paywall/meter for specific sections of your site.
  • Hosting virtual business and career fairs to strengthen ties to your community and grow revenue.
  • Using programmatic advertising—and the expertise of the iQ Ad Ops team—to generate incremental revenue from breaking news traffic spikes.

Ready to get started? Watch it now.

+2

Add "Breaking" flag to video assets

Jared F 5 years ago 0

This is a feature request to add the Breaking flag to video assets. 

1.WHAT PROBLEM DOES THIS SOLVE:  this allows us to use a LIVE VIDEO ASSET as a breaking news item on our site.  It provides easy access to one or multiple live streams in the case of breaking news.

2. HOW OFTEN WOULD WE USE IT: Often. Sometimes multiple times a day

3. HOW MANY PEOPLE IN OUR ORGANIZATION WOULD USE IT: All content publishers

As broadcasters, our life blood and competitive advantage is video. The easier we can streamline the process for our viewers, the better for everyone.

+1

Set up "SPONSORED" content flag to flow into email newsletters

Bruce Potter 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

"Sponsored content" is becoming a larger part of news organizations' revenue offerings to advertisers. But it's important that sponsored content be flagged as such in all formats to ensure the reader can differentiate between what is sponsored and what is actual news content. So we use the "SPONSORED" flag when posting articles through BLOX. However, when we pull articles into an email newsletter, the "SPONSORED" flag does not show up in the newsletter, so the content appears in the newsletter just like any other editorial content. We'd just like the option to have the "SPONSORED" flag show up in the newsletter, and ideally, for the sponsored content to be somehow distinguished, such as a shaded background. This would avoid confusing the reader and keep the delineation clear between actual news content and sponsored content.

0

Copying e-Edition pages from one edition rto the next

lmcbride 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

We have five pages that we want to add to the daily e-Edition, Each page has segmented areas that link to interactive puzzles on our website. We want the ability to copy these pages from one e-Edition to another without  having to re-segment the pages each day.

+1
Under review

Facebook comment count

Nick 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by anonymous 5 years ago 8
It seems like the comment count when using Facebook comments don't display the number of comments when viewing a list of assets in a block like "asset index: headline list" or "asset index: main index." It would be really nice to be able to display the number of comments to encourage readers to check the comments others have left. I know sometimes I will click on an article even if I know the story just to see what other people are saying.
Answer
Michael Becker 8 years ago

TownNews actually rolled out a comment count for Facebook, so I rolled back my customizations. Your comment dashboard would be at https://developers.facebook.com/tools/comments/YOUR_APP_ID_HERE

+7
Under review

Elections 2020 - what would your media organization want?

Joe Hansen (Product manager) 5 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 5 years ago 12

We are considering building a new "simple" elections platform for the 2020 election cycle and beyond. This would be more streamlined and easy to use than the old Election Stats, and would include AP election data for state and national elections, leaving you to focus on local. You'd still need to update your local race results as often as you want to make them available for your visitors, but the state and national would be automatic.

I'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts on what you would like to see. Is this something your site could use?

What functionality would you want in such a product?

How are you currently handling election results?

0

Webinar | Meet SmartSend: Offer advertisers an easy, low-cost way to connect with their customers

Join us on March 5th @ 10:30 AM CDT

At our March customer webinar, we’ll introduce SmartSend, an all-new text and email marketing app that allows your clients to easily send instant, direct messages to their customers. Your advertisers will love the outstanding response rates that text messaging provides—you'll love the effortless upsells and new digital marketing revenue stream!

Image 667


Topics will include:

  • An overview of SmartSend, an intuitive app that your clients can use to send texts and emails to their customers. It’s as easy as posting to social media!
  • Success stories from businesses who are using SmartSend to send offers, coupons, invitations, and more.
  • How you can start using SmartSend to easily generate NEW revenue from local advertisers.

Ready to get started? Join us on March 5th at 10:30 AM CDT.


Want to take in the webinar on your own time? Register now and we’ll send you a link to the webinar recording once it’s ready.

0
Completed

Webinar | Upgrade your email newsletters with our FREE optimization service

Cherry Wolf (Marketing specialist) 5 years ago updated 5 years ago 1

Webinar recording now available

Upgrade your email newsletters with our FREE optimization service

Image 665

When it comes to audience engagement, email is still tops. But how do you know you’re getting the best possible results from your email newsletters? At our February customer webinar, Tim Turner, director of content and data services for TownNews, introduced a new, FREE optimization service that will help you deliver real results with ultra-engaging email campaigns.

Based on proven best practices, our team will work with you to:

  • Double your existing newsletter signups (on average)
  • Increase email opens and clickthroughs with new, optimized templates
  • Create newsletters that appeal to a variety of key target audiences
  • Maximize your local and programmatic advertising strategy

Ready to get started? Watch it now.

0

Blox Now App story list does not refresh automatically.

Jeff Sebestyen 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

I have been noticing that on the Blox Now App, a story will not show up unless the user either force closes the app, or manually refreshes the feed by hitting the refresh button in the menu.   

I had a story post to Blox at 1:13pm.  At 2:15pm I opened my app and the article wasn't there.   I had to manually refresh my feed.  I realize some operating systems put background apps to sleep under different variables and behaviors my differ.  I do not expect a typical user to force close an app or have to manually refresh the feed.  

I would like a feature request for future versions to refresh the users feed after a certain amount of time whether the app is open, closed, or asleep in the background.