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.

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Under review

Feature request: Support for Facebook Instant Article Metering/Subscription

Bob Rose 5 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Patsy J. Moore 5 years ago 3

Facebook is offering an instant article paywall that lets publishers keep 100 percent of subscription revenue.
Details here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tdcq6ocqd1x3hoo/2019-07-25%2013.36%20Subscriptions%20within%20Facebook%20Instant%20Articles.mp4?dl=0

The page that talks about instant article paywall(https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instant-articles/subscriptions/) shows that the integration requires custom FB Pixels events being triggered, on login, and during purchase.
This level of integration doesn’t appear to be something that can be done in GTM, nor in BLOX templates, and seems to  require BLOX software support.The page that discusses account linking (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instant-articles/subscriptions/account-linking) mentions the need for “signed pixel events.”
That page shows sample code in PHP to generate the signed data, which requires access to the FB App secret, which would be unique to each BLOX website, just as the FB App is unique to that website.
This whole process requires running code server side to keep secrets. The “account linking” event requires an account_id to link the FB user to the BLOX user (for subscriber access details.) The only really reliable/secure account_id is the user’s UUID, which isn’t exposed in a cookie, so the front-end doesn’t have access to it .

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Completed

Webinar | How to upgrade your ad targeting with data you already have

Cherry Wolf (Marketing specialist) 5 years ago updated by Patsy J. Moore 5 years ago 2

Webinar recording now available

Join Tim Turner, iQ Engage program manager at TownNews, and Tim McDonough, manager of client strategy at Lotame, as they show you how TownNews and Lotame can help you improve ad targeting, and make more money with your in-house (first-party) data.

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Topics included:

  • Using your own proprietary audience data to maximize advertising revenue
  • Augmenting your in-house data with third-party audience data to unlock new ad targeting opportunities
  • Expanding your advertisers’ reach with look-alike modeling
  • . . . and more!

Ready to get started? Watch it now.

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Answered

Facebook Instant Articles

Paul MacNeill 9 years ago updated by Robert110 5 years ago 4

Following up on Rob Weir's question, but with a Facebook focus. A Wordpress plug in was just announced making it easy for all publishers to access instant articles. Does TownNews have a plan to quickly match this?

Answer
Christine Masters 9 years ago

Yes! We have already built the integration in fact. We haven't yet announced it because we'd like to have a customer go live with it to make sure it works properly and there are no issues. If anyone has a Facebook account that is approved for this, let me know, since it is still technically in beta on the Facebook side. =)


Thanks!


Christine

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Feature request: Add column in Editorial/Assets next to Title, Status, Sections and Start Time for Notification Date and Time.

erikover 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

What I would like, if possible, is to have a column in Editorial/Assets next to Title, Status, Sections and Start Time for Notification Date and Time.


1) What problem(s) does this idea solve? Why do you need this idea implemented? Provide as many problems or use cases as possible.
As of now, to remember or view what assets are set for you have to open each individual asset. This takes many steps and extra time. Also, as you know, opening an asset after a notification has been set increases the odds the post is prone to errors.


2) How often would you use this feature?
Daily. It would be used just like the Title, Status, Sections and Start Time columns.

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

Everyone who posts assets.

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private browsing / Incognito Mode Detection

The Keene Sentinel 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

It would be nice to have a detection and pop up for when people are viewing our site in incognito mode.    It should allow for a message and perhaps a promo code to purchase a subscription at a special offer.    

* It should work like the ad blocker detector*

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Answered

PRNewswire

jim green 5 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Joe Hansen (Product manager) 5 years ago 3

How do I block PRNewswire from getting included in my Town News Content Exchange? 

Answer

All PR Newswire content gets assigned to a specific set of section tags under Partners -> PR_Newswire. You can adjust your importer to exclude those section tags, or build an importer to import just the content exchange sections you want to import.

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Link assets in vertical galleries

scott rada 5 years ago 0

Even with a preview image, link assets don't display well in vertical galleries. My suggestion is to have them look just like an article asset (with image and preview option).

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capturing still frames from video

Eric R 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

Since Blox includes the ability to capture a POSTER or PREVIEW image from a video clip, could we have the ability to save those captures as individual images?  That way, we could easily create a photo gallery or collection from stills taken from a video clip.

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Find user: default to admin

Eric R 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

When creating articles, our writers typically want to assign an author to the story.  When selecting an author, the "find user" query defaults to ANY user.   It would be wonderful to be able to have this default to ADMIN so that our own users (authors) would appear at the top of the list.

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Whole website search options

Kara Johnson 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

Any ideas on a search bar that includes multiple types of results like articles, classifieds, calendar, and marketplace. For us, we have a search on our homepage but it only includes the classifieds and searching, for say, a town name and receiving all of the assets that go along with that would make it much simpler for our viewers. Has anyone found a work-around for this?

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Any way to disable Amp for just one specific story/url?

Alex Devoid 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

When we embed HTML assets in article assets these html assets are only shown as links on Amp pages. Is there a way to disable Amp for specific articles in which the HTML asset is integral to the story?

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Poll Results

Gannon Boone 5 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Kevin M. Cox 5 years ago 1

I think poll results need to be hidden while the poll is still live. 

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Customize Form Appearance

Kara Johnson 6 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Aidian 5 years ago 2

What I thought is a simple change but I can't find anything related- I'm looking to remove the drop shadow on my form headers. I saw other TownNews customers sites without a drop shadow and wanted to do the same. On here is a picture of a current form for us with the drop shadow. Thank you!

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Answer
Christine Masters 5 years ago

Hi Alex!

An asset that has published changes will update automatically within moments - you just have to contend with any related caching time (including browser cache).

On front and index pages, where the asset must get through additional layers of caching, it may take longer.

However, please see this help article on how to speed up page updates for breaking and important news:

https://help.bloxcms.com/knowledge-base/applications/design/blocks/block-library/article_d2b122f4-f038-11e4-a844-ff7a130047bb.html

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Completed

Watch it now | Digital Design Boot Camp: Crafting articles that engage

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

Webinar recording now available.


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Though videos and podcasts are all the rage, the workaday, unsung article still accounts for more than half of all page views across the TownNews network. How can you make the most of this potential? At our October webinar, Christine Masters, director of product management for TownNews, led a panel discussion on easy design strategies you can use to create high-impact articles that grow and engage your audience.

Topics included:

  • Developing your article design “North Star” game plan, with KPIs
  • Creating beautiful, magazine-style pages with our built-in Article Designer
  • Distributing your content to AMP, Facebook, and other platforms
  • Keeping your audience engaged with push notifications
  • . . . and much more!

Ready to get started? Webinar recording now available.