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+1

Idea's for banner ads...

Mike Stickler 11 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Ian McPhee 6 years ago 1
Three idea's for banner ads I would love to see in order by personal preference...

Link an ad display to user logon or lack thereof... My site content sits behind a paywall and one of the biggest complaints I get is "Hey you posted a link to this article on facebook but the article sits behind a paywall!!!" I know I can bypass the paywall in the article's custom properties but I'd like a way to monetize that. For example if a non-subscriber opens an article then display the ad in the popover position. However never display the popover ads when a subscriber is logged in. (So there would be 3 states "logged in subscriber," "logged in non-subscriber," "not logged in" --- by default an ad would display under all three circumstances... by deselecting one or more options on the ad setup this would be controllable. 

Link Ads together... I would love the ability to link 2 or more separate ads together (related) so that when 1 displays they both do... For example a skyscraper, leaderboard, and background ad (page takeover)

Smarter exclusions ... say I have 2 skyscrapper ads and I'd like them to randomly switch between 2 ad positions... If I put both ads in both positions then it randomly selects which ad will run in each position ... Because the same ad can't run twice on a page sometimes I see both ads some times I will see one ad... I'd like the system to be smart enough to say "Hey this ad is already running elsewhere on the page I'm going to automatically select the other ad for this position."
+2
Under review

Community Calendar

Keri Franzoni 6 years ago updated by Ian McPhee 6 years ago 2

The default event time selection the the submission form is every one minute. Who starts or ends an event on the minute? Please changed the default list to every 30 minutes with the option to type in minutes.

0
Under review

Inline Content

Robert Dundon 6 years ago updated by Christine Masters 6 years ago 1

Currently, Blox CMS has a way to include inline content with text and formatting or from related assets. That's great!

However, I was wondering in the future if it would be possible to add custom inline types? Thanks!

0

Webinar | Tourney fever is coming—score big with ultra-engaging college bracket contests

Cherry Wolf (Marketing specialist) 6 years ago updated 6 years ago 0

Join us on January 17th @ 10:30 AM CST

Sports fans nationwide are turning their attention to college hoops, and pick’em contests are a fun and engaging way to turn local sports fans into loyal repeat visitors. At our January customer webinar, Gary Stibolt, sales representative, and Doug Green, product manager at TownNews, will show off our all-new basketball pick’em contests for GamesPerform.


Image 431

Topics will include:

  • Creating bracket pick’em contests to satisfy your audience’s hunger for March college hoops.
  • Wowing advertisers with a variety of lucrative banner positions and contest sponsorship opportunities.
  • Managing your contests, creating leagues, and showcasing local basketball experts.
  • . . . and much more!

Bonus: Webinar registrants will be invited to join the TownNews Bracket Challenge and compete for prizes and bragging rights against other TownNews clients!

Ready to get started? Join us on January 17th at 10:30 AM CST.

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
Under review

Community Calendar & Marketplace Businesses venue submission on mobile is less than desireable

Keri Franzoni 6 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Phil Pracht (Product Manager) 6 years ago 3

You've made an update recently so this is better, but it's not there yet.

When using a mobile device to submit an event with the Marketplace Businesses module active the user experience to
"Find a location" lands on a screen that does not function well. If you are lucky the venue will display so you can choose it, but the box is not tall enough on an IOS iPhone 8. When you type in the search area, again it might display part of one venue from the search. The user is limited to the choice displayed and no way to navigate the remaining venues in the system or search. 

Answer

Nailed yet RE scrolling. I've issued a ticket to resolve this. We'll try to have a fix out soon! 

+3
Under review

Create a 5-star review application for restaurants and businesses to attach to article assets

Steven Mazzacane 11 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 6 years ago 6
+7

Poorly performing articles

Jason Schaefer 11 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Ian McPhee 6 years ago 1
I know this request may sound strange.I would like a new report added to the editorial analytics. This would be reports that pull in the opposite of the “Most Popular” article. It would show our least popular (based on pageviews) articles/assets. Currently I am manually tracking this information for our editors/general manager using Google analytics.

We use the information to be able to judge how our audience will react to a similar story in the future or in the extreme case we know not to write another story about that subject if it doesn’t get may views.

Some of our reporters/editors have already used this information to turn down a few stories because the last article we ran about that subject barely even had 20 pageviews but an article that we thought was a fluff piece (two paragraphs from AP) was viewed thousands of times.

I have read article of larger metropolitan papers that do a similar analytics.
It would also be nice if we had a view stats option directly on the article/assets. Similar to what is on the classifieds to quickly view their analytics.Attached is an example:

Image 25
+7
Under review

Integrate Facebook events with BLOX Calendar events

Christine Masters 12 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Ian McPhee 6 years ago 5

Allow the Calendar in BLOX to associate an event with a Facebook event. Then, you can use the FB API to pull photos to the BLOX page!

+1

Breadcrumbs above articles

Kevin M. Cox 6 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Patsy J. Moore 6 years ago 8

Is it possible to have the "breadcrumbs" that are at the top of section pages by default continue to be displayed above articles? This would allow easy back-tracking into the section.

I thought I could do it with Utility Regions but it won't allow me to place the standard "Section | Utility: Page heading | Dynamic" block there.

Is anyone else doing something similar?

+3

Improvements to Blox commenting system

Michael Becker 8 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Patsy J. Moore 6 years ago 1

I would be very interested to hear from other users about improvements they'd like to see to Blox-native commenting. Here are my suggestions so far.

(And to head off the inevitable: I am not switching to Disqus or FB just to get features. This is about improving the Blox system.)


  • The ability to moderate comments from the article page, rather than having to go into the Blox back-end.
  • "Trusted" commenters or some other sort of ranking system. Trusted commenters would be able to post links without review and their comments would be filtered nearer to the top of a comment list with a "Best Comments" sort order.
  • A "Best Comments" sort order, which would be decided by the upvote/downvote system.
  • See above: An upvote/downvote system for comments.
  • Ability to have clickable links
  • See above: Ability to hold comments for moderation if they contain links
  • Ability for users to edit their own posts.
  • Ability for users to upload images.
  • Ability for newsrooms to specify a period after which comments on an article close automatically.
  • Ability to show comments already posted AFTER commenting has been disabled, rather than having them all disappear.
  • Pipe dream: Real time comments.
  • Others?
0
Under review

We are attempting to use the new promo designer block. When a reader abandons his/her unfinished AdOwl order, I would like to offer the reader a button to call us. Tech support says it isn't possible. Can that be right? Ideas?

Peggy at the Leader 6 years ago updated by Christine Masters 6 years ago 3

We are attempting to use the new promo designer block. When a reader abandons his/her unfinished AdOwl order, I would like to offer the reader a button to call us. With an active click-to-call button. Tech support says it isn't possible. Can that be right? Ideas?

0

I'd like to sort Classified ads placed via AdOwl by category for a given date range.

pgibson 6 years ago 0

I'd like to sort Classified ads placed via AdOwl by category for a given date range. 


To do this. I need to be able to export a search result which includes both an AdOwl identifier and category information. I'm not finding a way to do this.

Category is not a filter setting for AdOwl Orders or Transactions searches.

I can export AdOwl Transactions, but the export does not include category information.

I do not appear to have the capability to export search results for AdOwl Orders.

AdOwl ads contain a unique External ID. but this does not appear to be searchable/indexed content in a Classifieds search: also. I am unable to export the results of a Classified search.


We would use this feature several times per year, perhaps monthly.  


This feature would be used by two people (Classifieds Manager, CEO), which constitutes 50% of our users.

+1

Make child/parent asset position default to END of article, not in a new column

Nathan B 6 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

It's so frustrating how a parent or child asset becomes an automatic sidebar in our layout. So you can lay out an article beautifully. But if, a year later, you add that original article as a child asset to a new article, then it ruins the layout on the original article -- putting this "sidebar space" on the left column with one article in it, and shifting the layout of the whole article to the right. So then every time I add an old article as a child asset to a new article, I have to go back to the old article and fix the layout, so that its new "parent" is inserted at the end, rather than default being moved to the left side and ruining the layout.

0
Planned

Fixing the size of type on the NOW App

Nic Stevens 6 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 6 years ago 4
I didn't know if this was in the works or not but we've been getting a lot of comments on the size of the font on the NOW app. Do we know if we'll be able to choose a different font size in the near future?
Answer
Christine Masters 6 years ago
Yes, we are working on font size! Currently slated for the next version, due out early next year.
+1

NOW App Select a home page

Nic Stevens 6 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Kevin M. Cox 6 years ago 1

In the new BLOX NOW app, we'd like to be able to select a landing page when you open the app. This way people can select if they want local news, business, homepage or what when the app opens. We had this in our old app and I think people really liked it.