I am reviewing feature requests and other issues surrounding start times and update times of articles. My question to you guys is:

- Is there any reason NOT to turn on important updates?

I'm considering making this feature enabled by default. Meaning, only updates on which you check the "important updates" box will modify the "last modified" time. An unimportant update would still create an entry in the story's revision history (in case you need to track it), but otherwise wouldn't trigger anything on the front end.

As part of this:

- Add "important updates" to all asset types.

- Allow block to be sorted by "update time" (which would include only important updates).

- Add flags or other indicators on the front end when stories are updated or new.

- Add more specific publish date and updated date to front end article (for transparency to readers)

- Remove settings for "important updates" and "add comments to important updates" since they would be default for everyone.

Thoughts?

TownNews.com and Field59 will be at the NAB Show next week with special guest Anchorman Ron Burgundy, ready to talk about all things video!

Will you be there? Let us know! Stop by South Upper Hall Booth SU14614 for your chance to meet our team and the Anchorman himself!

Take a pic and post to social with the #StayClassyNAB hashtag, then head across the aisle for a bite and a beer in the Draft House. It's new this year, and we're lucky enough to be right next to it for 4 whole days!

So for example, on our site, we have a centerpiece headline, photo, summary text and related links ... it would be cool if there'd be a way to have the gallery arrows added to the top-right hand corner of the photo then, when a user clicks on the arrow, the a full-screen gallery would appear. I think it would allow for a lot of good interaction directly off a page that gets a ton of traffic. This something others have asked about?

Anyone know syntax for access a block's custom property in UTL?  Context would be an to use as parameter in an if statement.  It's one of the (many, many) undocumented parts of the language.  Thanks folks!

Exciting news! TownNews.com made the final list for the Local Media Association R&D Partner of the Year. Now, the voting begins.Our mission every day at TownNews.com is to help our partners grow digital revenue and audience with our tools and technology, and we would love your vote and support for this honor. Thank you. 

We currently use Mailchimp to send and manage our email news blasts. Our subscribers are limited to updating their preferences within mailchimp settings. We would like to add a feature to our User Dashboard (“townnewssite”.com/users/admin/) so that users can manage their Mailchimp preferences, like what is available through Constant Contact.

We need this implemented because we prefer the use of Mailchimp vs Constant Contact for its usability and design capabilities. It has become a burden for our readers to manage two different accounts and our newsroom would like to move towards more streamlined personalization features. We anticipate this improved personalization will make our users turned newsletter subscriber into paying members, which will increase our happiness with the capabilities of TownNews CMS :)

TownNews.com and Brainworks Software today announced a strategic partnership aimed at providing new and innovative solutions that help print, broadcast, digital, and web-native media companies jumpstart revenue and audience engagement. Read more

Webinar recording now available.

Grow your audience and drive revenue with streaming video

BLOX OTT enables media organizations to grow their audiences with branded channels on all of the major streaming platforms, including Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. At our January customer webinar, Susan Bell, senior product manager of BLOX OTT, will discuss what over-the-top (OTT) video is, how you can start making money and expanding your reach with streaming video.

Topics will include:

• An overview of the complete BLOX OTT app suite.
• Populating your channel with high quality homegrown and community-sourced video.
• Turning your OTT channel into a powerful driver of new revenue.
• . . . and much more!

Ready to learn how you can benefit from BLOX OTT? 

Will you be doing any online bracketology options for the NCAA Men's basketball tournament? Might be a good way to sale some advertising especially for your college accounts.

We run into problems sometimes where 2 editors are simultaneously in a block, rearranging pins and then accidentally just saving over one another. It'd be nice for blocks to be locked when someone is in one, much like assets would be locked.

We run into situations, especially in breaking news, where 2 people might have our homepage top stories block open. Both are pinning and re-arranging stories -- but they're accidentally saving over each other's work without knowing it.

What problem(s) does this solve? See above

Why do you need this idea? See above.

How often would you use this feature? Daily

How many people would this affect in our news org? 100+

Hi y'all,

We love vertical collections. It'd be cool if on an individual collection level you could turn on/off photo titles. For example, we love photo titles for listicles but don't like them for live event galleries, where seemingly every photo has the same title. Right now we have CSS on our site that always hides the titles. 

What problem(s) does this idea solve? See above

Why do you need this idea implemented? See above

How often would you use this feature? Daily

How many people in your org would use this? 100+

Hi, is there a way to horizontally display a Twitter list and do it responsively?  For large formats, we would probably look for 5 or 6 tweets, then switch to a vertical feed for mobile formats

On WordPress, it offers users the means to grab a short link for the purposes of social media cleanliness, right there in WordPress. With Town News, we have to go to bitly or some other outside provider to get a short link. Why not add a short-link maker within the system, as it doesn't seem to require much programming to do? It could say "Get short link."

Our Publisher for NUVO.net would like to request the ability to use Amazon as a payment handler. Reasoning Outlined Below:

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

Frictionless payment without releasing data or filling out forms.  Universal, unlike Apple Wallet, etc…2) Why do you need this idea implemented? Provide as many problems or use cases as possible.

When we ask for money to read an article the user already only has an 8 second attention span and they don’t like to part with their money.  Make it safe and easy.
3) How often would you use this feature?

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

Everyone and all readers

Thank you,

Caitlin