Hey Craig,

Can you describe your use case? It sounds like, from Nick's answer, you're looking to put something like an info box in the right rail? Which box, and for what reason? Thanks!!

We have some existing logic that will remove the "Buy" link from photos:

- The asset has to have a high res version

- The application has to be editorial

- The asset cannot have the keyword "#nosale"

- The asset cannot have the flag "contributed"

- The asset cannot have a caption that contains "contributed photo"

- The asset cannot have a byline that contains "(courtesy"

- The asset cannot look like an AP photo (as determined by having an AP flag or having a keyword of #ap or having a byline of "associated press" or having a byline of "ap photo")

If it is possible to switch from "provided by" to "contributed by" or "courtesy" - then it would work now. That being said, we can see about adding "provided by" to the logic as well. I just have to do a little research and make sure there are no side effects (i.e. places where it may trigger unintentionally).

This is an awesome conversation guys! Thanks so much for starting this! I love to see threads where community members are helping each other.

I hope you don't mind - but I may add a link to this in our weekly "Release Notes" highlights email. :)

Firstly, one thing to note is that our video capabilities have improved over the years. We can upload larger files, serve mobile friendly formats, upload video directly from your phone via our BLOX Go interface, have VAST pre-rolls using DFP, and any videos you add will automatically be added to your Live e-Edition product if you're doing "segmented" mode with web enhanced articles. Read more about the video asset here.

That being said, we have worked with a few vendors, trying to get a programmatic revenue for pre-roll videos. As you guys have already stated - the issue is low volume. Unfortunately, with many of these vendors, we can't "pool" our TownNews.com network to be one giant destination (which would improve our buy rates on the programmatic bidding marketplace). That means that - as we've found during our testing - the CPMs are low and the fill rate is very low.

However! The good news is that we think we have discovered a vendor who would allow us to be considered a "network" - which would allow us to leverage the TownNews.com customer base to improve our network CPMs at scale. We would rev-share your portion back to you each month on your invoice.

If that works, I feel like we should do this by default for all BLOX videos. That way, you will automatically monetize your videos, with no work on your part.

And, if someone in your newsroom uploads something and it goes viral - you're great because you've monetized all that traffic with a pre-roll video.

Then, we would allow you to opt-out if you didn't want to participate (for your entire site or on a per-URL basis), or override our network if you wanted to use your own VAST DFP call (again, for your entire site or on a per-URL basis).

Would you guys be interested in that? Let me know what you think!

This should be available next month!!

Hi Lonnie!

We do have this reported as a feature request already to our core system. The main problem is that if we sort by date, then we will ignore the user-specified order that is set by dragging and dropping the items in the "related" tab. If we change that to sort by data, we'll lose the ability re-sort or change the sort in the admin.

However, I totally understand that you can't go in and re-sort the list each time a business submits a blog! So, we were discussing other ways to handle this... I will follow up with a few people and see if we have any updates or new ideas.

Hi there!

Yes, there is a fee, based on the number of subscribers you will have (not the number of emails sent). It is a very reasonable cost - but you should speak with your sales representative about specifics. =)

Yes, we are working on a more generic "like" button to go with reactions. Right now the tech requires login so we separated it out and are evaluating it. But I agree, I end up clicking "love" on everything, because it is the closest thing.

Let me know if you have any ideas for improving the visibility of this, as well... I'm thinking we need some kind of "teaser" at the top of the page so people can look for it... sort of like we have the comment count?

Maybe it shows the top few reactions with the total votes? Sort of like what Facebook does...

What face do we show if there are no votes?

I am also looking at putting reaction count onto a few blocks, so that when you show a "Most beloved stories" block (via reaction sort rules), you'll be able to show the count there.

If we do something like the image above, we could add it to blocks as well.

Any brilliant ideas? =)

I have asked our developers about this. I will let you know if that's available, otherwise I'll put in a feature request.

Our newsletters are 580px wide, which is the generally agreed consensus, so 580x72 as Nick mentioned is a good size for local ads that can just be resized or redesigned at that size.

We also see a lot of "full banner" ads, which is the IAB standard size: 468x60.

Also, remember that mobile accounts for more than 50% of email browsing. So having a 300x250 between rows of content works well there.

(I'm going to mark this as answered so it is easier for me to keep track - but if other people see this and want to share their email newsletter ad ideas, please please share!)

Hi Kevin!

Yes, this was a bug related to the BLOX Core release we did today, and it was fixed earlier this afternoon.

Thanks!