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+1
Started

Feature request - infinite story scroll

doug nelson 7 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 6 years ago 6

I would like to request an infinite scroll feature. When you get to the bottom of one story the next story published in chronological order shows up on the same webpage. This goes on for ever. 

+4
Under review

Apple News Format

Kevin M. Cox 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Robert Armstrong 6 years ago 8

Apple is finally opening up ANF to everyone. We've been pushing an RSS feed to Apple News for a while now, but publishing in ANF will over a more robust experience to readers.


Information on integrating the format here: Use a CMS with News Publisher


Any thoughts on getting BLOX to push out in ANF? There are already WordPress and Drupal plugins available.

+2
Under review

Users bypassing paywall with timing trick

Kevin M. Cox 6 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Patrick O'Lone (Director of Software Development) 6 years ago 12

It seems an enterprising non-subscriber has found a little glitch to access articles behind the paywall and his instructions are now making the rounds on social media.

Here are the instructions:

"I'm not too sure if I should be posting this. However, as someone who does PC/IT work and repair, I figure I could let some of y'all in on a way to read most of, if not all the article's without paying. (On Android using Chrome) Basically, I go to the article I want to read that is not free. Then I select "Request Desktop Site" in the browser settings. (the three dots on the top right)  Once that loads, (it puts a minor delay on the article loading) all of the article is displayed in its entirety for just a moment or two. A few seconds later the pop up to sign up for a subscription block's it all out. Now it's that small delay, prior to the subscription pop up, that we are after. In that delay, I do a screen shot of the article. (You might have to refresh the page and try again if you weren't quick enough the first time) After I successfully capture it, I then just read it via my picture gallery. If it's longer than my initial screen grab, 

I try a second time and scroll really quick to encompass the remainder of the article with another screen shot. If it's too long for those methods, I do a complete screen record. (video recording of your entire screen) then I go back through the recording and look frame by frame. Hope this helps some of y'all. You're welcome."

We've tested it out and have been able to confirm it works. While it isn't easy enough that I think we'll start losing subscribers over it, it also isn't that complicated to pull off.

I'm actually seeing it pretty consistently even on desktop browsers right now. It seems that the delay before the paywall message appears is much longer than it used to be. It looks like Town News might need to adjust the timing of how things are rendered so the full article isn't displayed until after the user has been evaluated as having an active subscription.

Have any of y'all come across readers doing this or something like it to bypass the paywall?

+7
Under review

Form submissions into Editorial app as article assets

David Marsters 11 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Jesus Sanchez 6 years ago 7
We use the forms platform for a lot of things, and in many cases, the submissions we get ultimately have to get put into the form of article assets into the Editorial application. It would be great if there were a way for this to happen automatically. An example would be a candidate questionnaire form for elections - ultimately the text is going to get used as an article asset, and right now we have to manually paste it in and format it.

I recognize that not all forms are soliciting information that we would want in our Editorial assets, even if they came over with "Do Not Publish" checked, so perhaps this would be a setting on the form that you could tell it do export to Editorial on a case-by-case basis.

Thanks very much.
Answer
Christine Masters 11 years ago
We do this for some things now - like Letters to the Editor can be submitted through the User Dashboard, and those will automatically become assets.

But, for fielded data that becomes more difficult because we don't always know the format that the resulting asset should have.

For some simple submissions though, this could be done in the User Dashboard.
+7
Under review

Subscriptions - "Upselling" without expiring current service?

Ian McPhee 6 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Rich Griffin | Product Manager (Product Manager) 6 years ago 2

Hey ya'll,


We recently launched our Subscriptions (we call it Membership) and there are five different price levels, including the free trial. Yesterday we got a call from someone who signed up for the lowest paid tier for one year, about a month ago. They now want to up their membership to the top level - something hopefully everyone will want to do at some point! Unfortunately, they ran into issues, already having an "active" subscription. My temporary solution was to manually expire their service on my end and then have them sign up for the new one, but this is obviously not ideal. 

I almost posted this as a "Feature Request," but figured it has to already exist, I must just be missing something. 

Any ideas?

Answer

Purchasing a different package is indeed possible when you have an active service. A Customer service ticket was resolved on the issue. There was apparently some miscommunication with the subscriber.

+3

Subscription reporting improvements - cancelled subscriptions and new subscribers

Jay Allred 7 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Ian McPhee 6 years ago 1

Try as we might, we cannot find a report / reports that help us keep tabs on subscriptions that do not renew (a.k.a. lost customers). Here's what we suggest be either changed or added.


1. Create a report that let's us track non-renewed subscriptions by customer name. For example, if Amy Jones' monthly or annual subscription is scheduled to renew, but does not - allow a way for us to get a list of those folks. We want to be able to contact them and find out why, win them back.


2. Create a report that allows us to track first-time subscribers by name. Specifically, we are interested in the people that made the initial decision to purchase a membership. Currently, there appears to be no simple way to track this critical data.

0
Completed

Webinar | Digital advertising 101: Optimizing your local and programmatic ad inventories

Cherry Wolf (Marketing specialist) 6 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 6 years ago 1

Webinar recording now available.

Digital advertising 101: Optimizing your local and programmatic ad inventories

Navigating the ever-changing landscape of digital advertising can be a challenge. At our February customer webinar, Patty Bristol, Ad Ops program manager at TownNews, shared best practices to help you better optimize your overall digital advertising inventory. Using real-life examples and known challenges, Patty showed how using local and programmatic together can create the optimal digital advertising revenue stream.  

Image 442

Topics included:

  • An overview of digital advertising, including commonly used terms
  • Generating revenue from local and programmatic ad sales
  • Introducing eCPM—the key metric for revenue growth
  • Tips for packaging and pricing digital ad inventory
  • . . . and much more!

Ready to get started? Watch it now.

+1

Ban commenting not user

Nic Stevens 6 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Kevin M. Cox 6 years ago 7
I would love to be able to ban someone from commenting without locking them out of their web site account. We have a column called It's Your Call and routinely we have people that push the limits and we have to determine if they are a subscriber BEFORE we can ban them because if they are a subscriber and we ban them, they can no longer get onto the web site. It's quite horrid to handle because you have to remember who you warned and once you banned them, you have to decide if you give them part of their subscription price back. We are on Facebook commenting for most things but this piece because we like the engagement it brings to the web site. Just sometimes don't like the comments. It's becoming weekly we have to make this call anymore. I also feel this would go along way to keep more and more pages with TownNews commenting instead of moving to Facebook commenting.

+13
Completed

Batch upload

Jason Schaefer 11 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Maunette Loeks 6 years ago 24
It could be quite useful for the batch upload feature to be included in the story asset (child assets).

This would enable the copy desk to upload/attach photos to a story at one time instead of batch uploading separately then searching for files.
Answer

This feature was released with our Tuesday update to the CMS.

0

Report comment for "guest" users?

Robert Armstrong 6 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

It seems that right now, the only way to report comments is if the user is logged in. Is there a way to activate the report button for all non-logged in users? I understand that this may lend itself to abuse, so having an option to have a higher threshold for "guest reports" or even the ability to remove the report button on a specific comment could help curb that.

0

The ability to unlock assets within the Blox Go mobile interface

Lonnie de Lambert 6 years ago in BLOX CMS 0


Having the ability to unlock assets within the Blox Go mobile interface will solve the problem of having to switch to desktop view on a mobile device and log into the CMS in order to unlock an article. This will save precious time, especially in a situation when multiple staff members are working on breaking or developing stories.

+1

FR: Disable username display in e-Edition "River of News"

Kevin M. Cox 6 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

(Apologies if I've simply been unable to find this setting and thanks in advance if anyone can show me where it exists already.)

We'd like the ability to disable the display of usernames in the e-Edition's "river of news." (See attached screenshots)

Image 435

Image 436


Showing them here doesn't add anything to the reader experience. They aren't clickable and just clutter up the display with un-useful information.

I'd be fine with them being simply removed completely but an option to enable or disable their display would allow other sites to make that decision themselves.

1. Create a cleaner reader experience by decluttering the display and removing information that is not useful.

2. Every day.

3. Every reader.

Thanks,

Kevin

+9
Under review

Embed form into story, or onto page

Meagen Finnerty 7 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Ian McPhee 6 years ago 3

I'm not sure if this has already been cracked, but it would be so nice if forms generated embed codes so we could put them at the bottom of stories, or embed them onto a landing page. Right now, we either link to them or use a third-party form that we can embed. 

+1

Disable e-Newsletter Confirmation Email

Sally Reynolds 7 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Ian McPhee 6 years ago 1

When a reader signs up to receive our e-newsletters (https://lancasteronline.com/newsletters/), they get an automated confirmation email from Constant Contact that must be clicked before they are actually subscribed to the e-newsletter. While I understand that the purpose is to maintain list quality, the unintended consequence is that the confirmation email is a barrier to the reader. As such, it reduces e-newsletter sign ups. The confirmation email is an optional feature in the Constant Contact platform. However, it is not optional for our e-newsletters due to (I assume) a decision made between Town News and Constant Contact. This affects all Town News clients who use the Constant Contact e-newsletter integration. I would like to ask for a reconsideration of this requirement, such that it be turned off globally for all of us.

+4

FR: Additional analytics for Email Reach

Kevin M. Cox 6 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

We'd like to request some additional analytics data be added for the Email Reach service.

• Statistics / Analytics / Email Reach: Add column for open rate. Yes we can do the math when needed but the system can do it much faster and have it available instantly when we need it or provide it in automated reports.

• Statistics / Analytics / Email Reach: We'd like to see columns related to active subscriptions. How many people on the "Sent" list had an active subscription when the email went out? How many of the "Opens" were active subscribers?

• Community / Email Reach: It could be helpful if the "Events" information was also available under Statistics / Analytics / Email Reach so it is all accessible from the same screen.

• Community / Email Reach / Contacts: Add a column for active subscriber status (yes/no).

Thanks.