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Though TownNews.com 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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Livestreaming?

Adam 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Dave Hon 9 years ago 2

Hello I was wondering if their was any kind of livestreaming support for townnews websites? something like how news station livestream their news broadcasts? Maybe its already able to do that. If so could you tell me how?

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Completed

Feature Request: Add geo location target for serving Banner Ads

Lisa Reilly 9 years ago updated 9 years ago 3

Our advertisers would like to target Countries or States or even Cities for their banner ads. Some examples would be to target Canadians (Winter Visitors) at certain times of year, Military communities as they look to relocate, or Mexico site users on the weekends. In some cases, the advertiser can only sell to people in our state or are trying to target visitors from a neighboring state.


Our request is to be able to target Countries, States or even Cities for banner ads.

Answer
Christine Masters 9 years ago

Hi Lisa!


I was able to figure out your site based on your email address, so it looks like you are indeed using Ad Manager.


If so, yes, we can target banner ads by geo-location in Ad Manager. Here are the docs:


http://help.bloxcms.com/knowledge-base/applications/marketplace/banner_ads/workspace/article_c78ca706-2beb-11e5-b97e-8b48b6ba52c6.html


Look for the part titled "Geo Targeting."


I will say that we are using IP address lookup to figure out the geo location, and on desktops this is a bit wonky since your ISP may report that you're in, for example, Virginia, because that's where your ISP is. (But you're in New York.)


On mobile, which is a majority of traffic on most sites, the geo-location information is much better and we use this information for ad targeting.


One more thing, I should take a moment to mention our ad targeting program for DFP, TownNews.com iQ. This program, in combination with the Google DFP software, can provide a much finer-grained targeting of users based on a variety of data (such as subscription information). If you have any questions, please ask your sales representative! :)


http://www.townnews365.com/solutions/products/townnews-com-iq/article_073df5f4-6d09-11e5-bc62-1b4b889ea1fc.html

+2

Would anyone else like to see an engagement button to show an article's full text?

Michael Becker 9 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

On some news sites out there, we're seeing an engagement tactic where only a couple of paragraphs of the story are presented, along with a button to reveal the rest of the text. I assume that button then sends an analytics event that can be used to track user engagement, that is, how many people are interested in reading beyond the first couple paragraphs.


I'd personally love to see this as an item added to the upcoming content discovery/engagement URL custom properties.

+2

Bug in the Blox Go mobile admin and bug during batch edit

Jacki Gray 9 years ago in BLOX CMS 0
There seems to be a bug in the Blox Go mobile admin. When a user makes an edit to an existing asset from the mobile admin and hits save, the asset updates in the database and then reorders the section tags into alphabetical order.

This creates a problem for ad serving (revenue) that works by section tag.


2. Section tags are also alphabetized during the batch editing process. This, too, creates a situation that impacts ad serving and our internal workflow.

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Join us | Optimizing your BLOX CMS site for speed

anonymous 9 years ago updated by Aaron Gillette (Marketing Director, TownNews) 9 years ago 0


Image 172At our July customer webinar, Christine Masters, director of product management, will highlight insider tips and techniques to help make your BLOX CMS site faster than ever.



We'll cover:

  • Understanding the need for speed and how TownNews.com's Flex Templates can help reduce load times.
  • Evaluating ads, third-party add-ons and other factors that can slow down your site.
  • Creating page size & load time budgets to help you stay on track when designing pages and adding new content.
  • Future upgrades to rendering, CSS and much more!

Join us on Thursday, July 7th at 10:30 AM CDT.

+4

Need "important update" option to save for assets other than just articles

Jacki Gray 9 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

It would be beneficial to have the "important update" save work on assets other than just articles. This could be useful for table and html assets. For example, we publish data or stats as tables. In some cases we replace the table with updated information and it would be helpful or the reader to know that new information is indeed available in the table.

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DFP Unfilled Impressions Flex

Craig V 9 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

Since we launched Flex, we have been seeing high volume of unfilled impressions. I am sure it is because of the class hidden-xs etc, hiding the ad on a small device and not removing it. Anyway to fix this? I am attempting to switch the class names to use visible-sm etc to see if that makes a difference.

+1

Feature request: Have expandable ad only expand once per minute/hour/day but always displayed

Nick 9 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

Expandable ads. Advertisers love them, the majority of us hates them. A potential middle ground could be allow the expandable to auto-expand a set number of times per a set period. We have great functionality to restrict the display of an ad to XX times per YY minutes/hours/days. Is that possible for auto-expand?

+1

Adding a 'date block function' to Blox forms

Christopher K 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Maureen Reinert 9 years ago 1

We would like to see a date block function (similar to AdOwl) so people can't pick certain dates for publications.

1. What problem would this solve?

We have a notation under the dates saying there is a mandatory 11 day waiting period, but people still will pick dates within that time period. We then get people complaining because their submission didn't run in the date they wanted (even though it was under the 11 day period).

2. Why the implementation is needed

This would halt any submissions that try to circumvent the required turnaround time from when the form is submitted to when it will run in the publication.

3. How often would it be used

We currently have 6 forms just for our Celebrations publication that is used all the time by people to submit Anniversaries, Weddings, Birthdays, Retirements etc. We also have other forms that would use this function as well (Letters to the Editor, Obits etc.)

4. How many would use this function

These are forms to get information to run in different publications, so multiple people would benefit from this function.

+3

PSA: FLEX uses FontAwesome for its icons

Nick 9 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

This is a two part post. The first part is to suggest a "PSA" topic type for community.townnews.com similar to the "Ideas" "Questions" "Praises." If there's a trick we've learned that isn't template busting or anything it would be cool to be able to share that, especially if it isn't included in help.bloxcms.com. So for the first PSA...


For those of you who use FLEX if you ever want to make use of the text icons you see here and there on your site you can add tons of other fonts. FLEX uses a font called FontAwesome to deliver vector icons. What icons does this include? Check here to see a list of icons: http://fontawesome.io/icons/.


It seems like they only have those listed under "Web Application Icons" and not those included in 4.6. You can even click the icon and it will tell you what code to put on your site.


So if my site had a Harry Potter section and we wanted to include a somewhere we just have to put: <i class="fa fa-bolt" aria-hidden="true"></i>


Have fun!

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Pop up for email sign ups

Rebecca Fellenbaum 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by John 9 years ago 5

Hi, Does anyone recommend a third party software for a lightbox or pop up that allows visitors to subscribe to your emails right from the pop up? I am looking for suggestions!

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Newsletter Signup pop up: question and critique.

John 9 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

We did it!

Check out our newsletter sign up here - http://www.utdailybeacon.com/multimedia/

We're still testing because there are still some funky issues.

1. Constant Contact registers 3 instances of the same email, for some reason.

2. The pop up doesn't fully close after signup.


Any tips or suggestions are welcomed, please and thank you!

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Webinar recording: What's new in BLOX Live e-Editions & BLOX Total CMS

anonymous 9 years ago 0

At our June webinar, Rich Griffin (BLOX Live e-Editions product manager) and Jon Winters (BLOX Total CMS product architect) discussed the latest updates and new revenue opportunities.


Highlights include:

  • Generating revenue with ne banner ad positions for BLOX Live e-Editions.
  • Increasing user engagement with cutout asset upgrades.
  • Creating a better reader experience with simplified jump segmentation.
  • Saving time with improved asset merging and page replication in BLOX Total CMS.
  • And much, much more!

For more information, watch the recorded webinar today!


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Business card: Business (Flex)

Sarah McCraley 9 years ago 0

Is there a way to have mapping as an option on the flex block : Business card : Business (Flex).


The block for Calendar: Card Event has a mapping option. It would be nice to have mapping as an option for the business blocks as well.


Thanks,

Sarah

+1

How come when you type replies in articles paragraphs are not allowed?

rustyp 9 years ago 0

How come when you type replies in articles comment section paragraphs are not allowed?


Thanks.