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Article: How Hearst Newspapers changes its paywall to drive reader loyalty
Good read, this level of flexibility looks great:
https://digiday.com/media/hearst-newspapers-changes-paywall-drive-reader-loyalty/
"At the Albany Times-Union, the first paper to test the flexible paywall, the total number of subscribers has doubled since it started tests in September, and the overall number of new subscriber numbers for Hearst Newspapers has jumped 10 percent."
Quiz asset
Webinar recording now available | Refresh your site for spring with these best practices
Watch the webinar recording now
Things move fast in the digital world—blink and you may just miss something! At our March customer webinar, we review recent features and updates you may have missed, and highlight improvements you can implement on your site today.
We showed you:
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I'm having trouble setting up an Alexa Flash Briefing.
Support says I need a proxy server. Has anyone else got this working that would point me in the right direction please?
serve HTTPS from blox app directory
Anyone know if this is possible? Our site is now HTTPS, but assets in the app directory aren't, so they won't display.
The /app directory should allow http or https as long as you are calling that from the original code. You would need to ensure that the reference in the code is actually pointing to https however. Protocol-less will also work, but these days we recommend just doing straight secure always, regardless of whether or not your site is secure.
In other words, if your website is asking for an image in the /app directory, it needs to say:
<img src="https://example.com/app/images/image.jpg">
instead of:
<img src="http://example.com/app/images/image.jpg">
If you're doing this already and it isn't working - please let me a link (you can create a job ticket also) so we can look.
Anyone have a Google Ad Experience Report yet?
Go to webmaster tools, then Web Tools and see if you have a report yet. My "Google Sites" page has been reviewed, but none of the other sites I have access to have been reviewed.
Anyone else? Let us know!
Feature request: Reader blogging platform
How many of you would welcome a more robust "article submission form" to use as a reader blogging platform? I'm talking about the same functionality of the story asset, with hyper links, ability to submit multiple photos and place them in the text where needed, etc.
I have seen a few requests for hyperlinks and other stuff in the "article submission form," but I think full functionality would be welcome.
Our only other option would be to open part of our admin to readers, and we really don't want to do that as that will bring in a whole other set of problems.
Feature request: Import unlisted YouTube videos from owned channel
YouTube is working with publishers — there's a whole YouTube for Publishers program. It's also our video player, so we upload and monetize all videos through YouTube. That works great on videos that we create — we upload them and publicly publish them. We also use AP video. We can add (and monetize) the video to our site through YouTube, but not to our YouTube channel. The easy way to do that is to add those as unlisted videos.
Syndication pulls in YouTube feeds; very handy. But only public videos. The API that Town News uses searches YouTube, similar to a user searching YouTube, so unlisted videos are invisible. To add unlisted videos to Blox, I have to manually create a YouTube asset.
Is it possible to change that a bit so that unlisted videos on my YouTube channel also can be imported?
Help with Calendar Query Rules
Can someone help me find the accepted values for calendar query rules with dates? For example, I can see that for the rule "Creation Date/Time" I can Choose an exact date, say "Feb 1, 2018" but I also see that we are using "Today" as a value in some places. Where is the documentation for all the accepted values for these rules? Can I write "Tomorrow" or "Today +7"?
this Calendar Query Rules doesn't seem to have it.
Feature Request: Minify CSS/JS on the Fly
Let's say we have some CSS and JS in the global skin and UTL components. It's on the CDN as the other JS/CSS files as Core TN stuff. This works great!
However, can there be a way to access a minified version of those files? For example, if we have a file in global in resources/scripts/somefile.js (which would translate to something like https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/example.com/content/tncms/live/global/resources/scripts/somefile.js on the CDN) can we have a minified version like https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/example.com/content/tncms/live/global/resources/scripts/somefile.min.js ?
Just a humble idea by me. Thanks!
Too Many Requests
Our organization uses VDIs (virtual desktops) hosted in Microsoft Azure as our means of doing business. The site looks great in the VDI without any issues whatsoever. When I click the login link, I receive the login screen. However, when I submit my credentials the server returns with an HTTP 429 error. "Too Many Requests"
Is there anyway to avoid this message? Perhaps the system thinks that I (along with all other Azure traffic) is the same individual attacking the CMS? Is there a way to relax this restriction so we can avoid purchasing physical machines?
Thanks
Hi Rob!
I spoke with our systems department about this - it seems as though that server is being flagged as a bot (we have many rules in place to help protect sites from invalid traffic, attacks, or bad bots). If you submit a ticket to our Customer Support department, they can work with you on possible ways to identify your requests so they are not throttled. Let me know if that makes sense! Thanks!
Is the Associated Press Channel supposed to flow in stories automatically?
I have an AP Channel set-up. Are these stories supposed to flow into my site automatically? Do I need a JOB setup? My intention is to have a small widget that flows in AP stories dealing with NBA.
Eva from TownNews did indicate to me that along with an AP Channel..you will also need an "Importer" setup. This should not be confused with "Jobs".
Further Reading: How Do I Create an Importer To Automatically Pull in Syndicated Content?
Request: Scrolling skyline region
We are trying to sell our masthead banner ad space, but advertisers frequently ask to have it scroll with the page.
We would like to be able to use the Skyline Utility Region while the Navigation option is set to Fixed on Scroll, and have the option to allow any custom blocks in that region to also scroll with the navigation header (above it).
Webinar | How the Better Ads Standards will matter to your bottom line
Webinar recording now available.
How the Better Ads Standards will matter to your bottom line
Digital advertising is about to get even more complicated. In an attempt to make ads less annoying for users, Google Chrome browsers will begin broadly enforcing the Better Ads Standards on February 15th, 2018. At our February customer webinar, Phil Pracht, revenue product manager, Christine Masters, director of product management, and Stevie Longwith, Ad Ops program manager, discussed these new digital ad requirements and the steps you need to take today to keep your ad revenue flowing.
Topics included:
- An overview of the Better Ads Standards and how they apply to BLOX CMS sites
The impact of Chrome Ad Filtering on ad servers—including BLOX Ad Manager
How to use Google’s Ad Experience Report to help you understand if your ads violate the Better Ads Standards
. . . and more!
Ready to learn how you can comply with these new rules and keep your ads from being blocked? Webinar recording now available.
Hearken, Groundsource, and the LenFest Institute grant - does BLOX integrate?
Does anyone have any experience integrating Hearken or Groundsource with BLOX?
You may have heard, but in case you haven't, The Lenfest Institute for Journalism is offering a 650k grant to help newsrooms deepen engagement with audiences using either of these tools.We are considering going for the grant, but I am having a hell of a time getting anyone from TN / Blox to tell me if the tools will work inside our system.
Any experience or confirmation from the mother ship?
Customer support service by UserEcho
