It was a great solution for its time, but the digital landscape has changed dramatically.

In 2026, publishers are no longer competing only with social media or aggregator sites. They are competing with AI systems capable of scraping, repackaging, and redistributing content at scale. And unfortunately, metered paywalls are uniquely vulnerable to this new reality.

Why Metered Paywalls Worked — Until They Didn’t

The metered model was built on a the assumption that users behave like individuals. A single reader typically uses just one browser, a small number of devices, a limited number of IP addresses, and cookies that track article views.

Metered paywalls track article counts via cookies and IP logging. When the limit is reached, access is restricted. For human readers, this works reasonably well, but for AI-driven scraping systems, it doesn’t offer the same kind of content protection.

How AI Exploits Metered Systems

Modern scraping systems do not operate like traditional bots from a single IP address. Instead, they use:

• Rotating IP address pools
• Distributed cloud infrastructure
• Headless browsers that mimic human behavior
• Cookie resets and session spoofing
• Residential proxy networks

In other words, an AI system can access your content as if it were thousands of different “first-time readers.” Every request looks legitimate, and every session appears new; so the Meter never ticks down.

This means that AI systems can summarize and redistribute your content, republishing it on aggregator sites, using it to train AI models, or even sharing it freely to individuals via AI chat tools.

The Solution: The Hard Paywall

Although our platform engineers are frequently blocking bots and AI crawlers, it is virtually impossible to block them all and eliminate any risk of AI stealing your content. The most effective way of preventing this is to implement the age old “hard paywall.”

A hard paywall removes the “preview” model entirely and forces a user to purchase a paid subscription in order to access any content. Under this model, automated scraping by AI becomes significantly more difficult and costly. While no system is invulnerable, hard paywalls dramatically raise the barrier.

Of course, this change is not about punishing or limiting readers, but rather about protecting journalism. Metered paywalls were designed in an era where the biggest threat was casual sharing. Today, the threat is automated content scraping at industrial scale.

If you’re currently using a Metered Paywall and have concerns about your content being scraped or stolen, you may want to consider switching to a Hard Paywall model. Our team can help you make this change at any time. Just email our support team at ops@our-hometown.com to get started!

The post The Metered Paywall Problem in the Age of AI first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Interface Updates

Default Dashboards

We’re thrilled to announce an exciting update to our newsletter plugin! This update brings a fresh, intuitive interface designed to streamline your workflow and unlock new possibilities for engaging your subscribers. In this blog post, we’ll take you on a tour of the updated interface, highlighting the key improvements and comparing it with the legacy version. Get ready to discover how these changes can elevate your newsletter game and help you build stronger connections with your audience!

You will immediately notice from the screenshots of the legacy and updated dashboards that the widget layout is quite different as are the navigation menus for the plugin. Most notable is a new Subscriber Funnel graph that provides you with quick links to the most used settings for onboarding, such as email templates, and security settings.

We will cover these new widgets and some other exciting new features in a subsequent post. For now let’s get oriented to the new interface.

Left Navigation Menus

Updated menu

Legacy menu

Menu items highlighted in BLUE reflect changes from the legacy plugin.

• Dashboard: Main plugin dashboard
• Subscription: Subscription configurations including opt-in settings, and activation email settings
• Forms: Lists all forms available for inclusion in the newsletter subscription process (registrations, event submissions, etc.)
• Newsletters: Lists sent newsletters not included in an Automated channel
• Lists: Manage subscriber lists for Automated channels (formerly found under the List Building menu)
• Settings: General settings such as sender address, delivery speed and company info
• Automated: View and manage your automated newsletter channels
• Reports: View and export analytics for a newsletter channel by date range

• Dashboard: Main plugin dashboard
• Welcome: Plugin setup wizard
• Settings: General settings such as sender address, delivery speed and advanced settings
• List Building: Subscription configurations including opt-in settings, and activation email settings
• Security: Anti-spam and blacklist settings
• Newsletters: Lists sent newsletters not included in an Automated channel
• Subscribers: Add to, update and filter your current subscribers
• Amazon SES: Admin settings
• Automated: View and manage your automated newsletter channels
• Reports: View and export analytics for a newsletter channel by date range
• WP Users Integration: Newsletter subscription settings for non-memberpress accounts (via shortcode)

Plugin Menus

Updated Menu

Legacy Menu

Subscribers

List Building

Newsletters

Settings

System

Search And Edit has been replaced by All Subscribers, but the link still leads to the Subscriber management page.

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Be on the lookout for future post new features such as 2-step Unsubscribe, Form Integrations, and a Leads feature for managing popups and other CTA. Please reach out to us at ops@our-hometown.com to learn more!

The post The Newsletter Plugin Gets a Facelift first appeared on Our-Hometown.

The new Author Profiles feature creates a profile page on the website for each author where visitors can read a short biography and find links for the author’s social media profiles. Importantly, the Author Profile page acts as a hub listing other articles credited to the author, allowing readers to quickly find more content from their favorite writers or columnists.

In addition to the user-facing benefits, the Author Profiles feature also assists with Search Engine Optimization.

Join us on March 28th at 3PM EDT for a feature overview and live demonstration! Registration is free for Our-Hometown customers — just fill out the form below and expect an email invitation on the morning of March 28th!

The post LIVE WEBINAR: Introducing Author Profiles first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Welcome to a quick tutorial from Our-Hometown. We recently revamped the design of a customer newsletter page to include a Google map with pins representing the featured publishers in the region. The publisher wanted to include this map highlight in the email version of the newsletter, so we decided to create an animated GIF showcasing each publisher as a teaser to engage readers. Today, I’ll guide you through creating your own animated GIFs using Adobe Photoshop.

Gather your images!

Let’s start by assembling your source images. For our newsletter example, we’ll use a screen capture tool to create individual images of our interactive map, highlighting different publishers.

Depending on your computer, you can use built-in screenshot tools (Command-Shift-5 on Mac, the Snipping Tool on Windows), or your favorite screen capture software.

I this demo we will copy the screen capture to the clipboard and paste to a new layer in our Photoshop document.

On the newsletter page with the highlight map, select the capture area option (and specify the clipboard as the destination).

If you are on Windows the capture options are similar using the Snipping Tool.

Type Enter or click the Capture button and the image will be copied to the clipboard.

Create an Image Stack

Now let’s open Photoshop and create a new document. For the size you can now choose the Clipboard options which will create a new document with the exact size of your screen capture.

Once you’ve created the empty document, simply paste the screen capture on the a new layer with CMD-V.

The process is the same for each subsequent capture. Go back to the site and activate the capture tool (on MacOS the selected area conveniently will be the same as you last capture. Continue capturing the map with the different publisher pop-ups, and pasting each onto a new layer in your Photoshop document until you’ve assembled all the needed images for the slideshow.

Now let’s animate!

First we need to open the timeline, by going to the window menu, and selecting Timeline from the list.

An empty timeline panel will open at the bottom of the interface. Click Create Frame Animation.

This will add a single frame to the timeline from the current visible layers.

However to create a slideshow we want a single layer (for each map image) to appear on each frame. To do this, click the 3-line menu at the top right of the Timeline panel and select Make Frames from Layers.

This will automatically create a new frame for each layer with all the other layers hidden. You can click on each frame in the Timeline panel to view its contents.

Finally we need to add some timing. At the bottom of each frame is a delay setting. You can set each of these individually or en masse by Shift-clicking the beginning and end frames, then selecting the desired delay time from the any of the frame dropdowns.

Below the frames are the playback controls. You can leave the loop setting at forever and click the Play button to preview the animation.

Time to share!

Now you are ready to export your animated GIF! From the File Menu go to Export and Save For Web (Legacy).

In the panel that appears, make sure you choose GIF from the file format and and any sizing options needed. You can see the estimated size of the final file at the bottom left of the preview window.

When you are satisfied with the settings, click Save. You now have an animated GIF that you can place anywhere you would like on your website or newsletter!

The post Make Awesome Animated GIFs with Photoshop first appeared on Our-Hometown.

If you’re using the online payment gateway Stripe to process payments through your website, please be aware that you may be required to verify or update your business and/or account ownership information in order to continue using Stripe.

We urge you to take a few minutes to login to your Stripe Dashboard and check for any notifications from Stripe requesting this information. In addition to the dashboard notification, you also should have received e-mail correspondence from Stripe at the e-mail address used to create or manage your account.

This is extremely important! If Stripe has requested this information from you, there will be a deadline by which you need to respond. If you miss the deadline, they will disable payouts and eventually disable the ability to collect money from your subscribers altogether.

To be clear, this is a part of Stripe’s standard account auditing process, and is not a result of any kind of security concern.

In most cases, Stripe is just requesting basic information that is missing from the account details, such as names, addresses and phone numbers of the business owners. Occasionally, they may request links to your website’s Privacy Policy and/or Terms of Service pages.

You should receive several e-mail notices from Stripe if they are requesting this information, but to be safe, the easiest way to check is to go directly to your Stripe Dashboard and look for any notifications.

If you have any questions or need any help locating your website’s Privacy Policy or Terms of Service pages, you can reach out to our support team by emailing ops@our-hometown.com at any time.

The post Stripe users: Please check your account status first appeared on Our-Hometown.

We have sad news about a longtime member of the Our Hometown family.

Teri Marie McLaren, beloved mother, grandmother, and friend, after a short and courageous battle with cancer, went to meet Jesus on January 25, 2024.

We all knew Teri as the matriarch at Our Hometown.  She was passionate about her vital role as production manager and brought a positive energy to every interaction.  

Ever since Teri started with us as a production rep, she displayed an amazing work ethic and curiosity to make things better for newspaper publishers.  She used to say that her dad wanted her to be an engineer, and she definitely had the talent.  Instead, she dedicated most of her life to raising and homeschooling six boys, who by all accounts were the center of her universe.  Our Hometown was a second career for her and she brought beautiful wisdom to the company that will be dearly missed. 

Teri’s family will receive friends at the Christopher Mitchell Funeral Homes 16650 Route 31, Holley NY 14470 on Monday January 29, from 3:00-5:00, followed by her funeral service at 5:00pm.  Interment will be in Beechwood Cemetery in Kendall in the spring.  

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Wounded Warrior Project or Disabled Veterans of America.

To share a special memory of Teri, please visit: mitchellfamilyfuneralhomes.com

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Legacy.com obituary

The post In Memory of Teri Marie McLaren first appeared on Our-Hometown.

The following is a guest column from our friend and industry expert, Kevin Slimp!

Making bold predictions is easy. This year, I’ve paid close attention to forecasts by respected sportswriters in national print and online publications to see how my football bowl predictions match up against their predictions. Some of you probably did the same thing.

I was surprised that I correctly predicted the winners of the bowl games at a much higher rate than any of the national sportswriters I followed. There are still a few games remaining in the bowl season, so that could change. For now, however, I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

I think it’s probably easier for someone like me to make predictions like these because I have nothing on the line. I can pick Missouri over Ohio State because I don’t feel any pressure to pick the favorite. Let’s face it: if I’m a respected sportswriter considering picking Ole Miss to beat Penn State, I know I will get hammered if my underdog pick loses. The safe bet is to choose the favorite. Then, if the favorite loses, most readers will understand because they picked the favorite, too.

I’ve made a career out of making good bets on the newspaper business. More times than not, my bets were not popular among “experts,” but I somehow kept picking the right team.

My first bet was long ago, in the early 1990s. I was betting against big players like Adobe and others who were adamant that designing a newspaper in one location and then magically sending it to another location to print using a new technology called a PDF file was a crazy idea. For a lot of reasons, the idea couldn’t work. Thankfully, a few folks placed their bet on my idea, and before long, the PDF file was the standard for printing newspapers and everything else. A few years later, the CEO of Adobe wrote to me, thanking me for possibly saving his company.

Fast-forward a few years, and I found myself once again making unpopular wagers. Most noted “experts” were convinced the printed newspaper was within just a few years of extinction. Even newspaper experts predicted the quick end of the printed word. Many leading journalism schools led the way by proclaiming the newspaper business “dead.” I kept hearing the year 2018 knocked about as the year the final newspaper would turn off its press. I wonder when someone will print a tee shirt with “Kevin was right!” on the back.

A quick Google search just now – searching for headlines from the past week – uncovers a windfall of gloomy predictions, including:

Inroads: The Canadian Journal of Opinion
The Near-Death of Local News

Politico
No Stopping the Newspaper Death Spiral

Whenever I read headlines similar to those, I remember other headlines like this one from 2006:

The Economist
Who Killed the Newspaper?

I’m also reminded of this one from 2009:

Business Insider
The Year the Newspaper Died

Or this one from 2011:

The Guardian
British Newspaper to Die in 2019

Many of you are familiar with the Newspaper Extinction Timeline by Australian-based futurist Ross Dawson. I found the timeline from 2010, predicting that newspapers in the United States would be “insignificant” by 2017. According to the timeline, most other nations’ papers wouldn’t face extinction for another decade or two.

I’m not picking on Dawson or anyone else. Dawson has since backtracked on the extinction date in the U.S. and admitted it was much too early. That doesn’t, however, undo the damage that was done to newspapers who had to explain to their readers and advertisers that they weren’t dying.

Like football bowl predictions, it’s safer to agree with popular opinion than to make unpopular predictions. I suspect it also leads to more invitations to speak at conferences. I get it.

By now, you might be wondering if I will ever get to my point. Get ready. It’s coming now: It is the beginning of a new year. What if we agreed to pay less attention to experts declaring our demise and spend a little more time appreciating what we’ve created and investing in growing our newspapers?

I hear from publishers daily who are investing in the future of their newspapers. They’re investing in staff training, new designs, hardware & software, and marketing. They have not only not given up; they are investing in their futures.

If I were an expert who had predicted the death of newspapers a dozen years ago, I’d probably be saying something like, “I didn’t hit the exact date, but I was right. I was just a few years off.”

That seems like the safest way to keep getting speaking gigs. Thankfully, I’m not too concerned about that these days. So let me suggest you give my idea some consideration. It just might make for a much more enjoyable – as well as profitable – 2024.

The post Kevin Slimp: “Beginning 2024 Right” first appeared on Our-Hometown.

The holiday season is officially in full swing, and we need your help to make sure that we have the resources available to handle any holiday-related requests such as early publishes, late publishes, or extra special sections that need to be posted online between now and the new year.

If you are currently utilizing our PDF to HMTL Extraction Service, please LET US KNOW if there will be any changes to your regular online publishing schedule during the weeks leading up to Christmas and the new year by emailing our support team at ops@our-hometown.com.

Once again, we would appreciate notification if any of the following are true:

• You will publish your edition online early
• You will publish your edition online late
• You will not be publishing an edition online at all
• You will be publishing an additional special section with your paper

If we do not receive advance notice of any schedule changes, it may result in delay of up to 24-hours in getting your edition published online.

*Note: The above scheduling information is only necessary if you are a “Full Service” customer, or in other words, if you rely on our PDF to HTML Extraction Service to update your website.

The post Holiday Scheduling Reminder first appeared on Our-Hometown.

The following is a guest post contributed by our friend and partner, Kevin Slimp!

A funny thing happened to me in Denver a few days ago while I was in town to speak at the Colorado Press Association Convention.

I had just finished my fourth presentation of the weekend. The topic was “Designing a Better Newspaper.” Most of the folks in the room had been around for all four of my sessions, and the time to end the workshop had come and gone.

As people were getting up to leave, a voice spoke up. “Do you have a minute to look at my newspaper and give me some advice?”

I told her I’d gladly sit with her and look over her paper. That’s when the “funny” thing happened. Another person asked, “Could I get you to look over mine, too?”

It was as if someone blew a whistle and told everyone to stop in their tracks. Most of the group began walking back toward their seats.

I asked if anyone else would like me to look over their papers. To make a long story short, all but a few people returned to the room and took out copies of their newspapers.

I invited the group to circle me as I sat at a long table. I spread the newspapers across the table and began critiquing them individually. As I finished one paper, I immediately started critiquing the next paper. Another funny thing: no one left. Everyone stayed to see what I would say about the other papers.

We stayed in that room for nearly 90 minutes until I mentioned they were scheduled to attend a banquet in a few minutes.

As I think back to the phenonium of a group electing to stay late at a workshop, I’m reminded of the similarities between their papers. I repeated much of my advice repeatedly as we looked through the newspapers on the table.

Here are a few of the most common critiques that came up in Denver:

Headlines: Use fewer words and bigger fonts. By using fewer words, it leaves room to use bigger text. Instead of “Rumors of new Amazon distributorship coming to town in November,” I’d suggest something like “Amazon Rumors” in big letters. A subhead underneath the headline could provide more details, “Rumors of distributorship coming to town in November seem to have merit.”

Photos: Fewer small photos should be included with stories. It seemed common for the Denver papers to place three or four smaller images with a front-page story. Because there were so many photos, they drew less attention. In many cases, I suggested a single three or four-column photo to replace the multiple photos with a story.

Page Headings: Cute is out. Consistent is in. Page headings like “Local,” “Agriculture,” and “Features” should have similar looks. As tempting as it is to use a big piece of clipart at the top of the Classified page, don’t do it. Keep the page consistent with the others.

Borders: Yes, have borders around your photos. And get rid of the drop shadows. They (drop shadows) were in five years ago, but not so much now. A thin border, .4 or .5 in width, should do the trick nicely around images. Don’t forget to keep the border inside the frame so it doesn’t stick outside the column.

Color: In my designs and redesigns, you’ll find color in only three places: color photos, ads, and kickers (those short bits of text like “County Commission” above a headline). I rarely include color in the flag (top of the front page) unless it’s in a teaser photo above it. Leave the cute clipart for the high school newspapers and church newsletters.

Above the Fold: Check out the top half of the front page (above the fold). Does it make the reader want to pick up the paper or put it down? The area above the fold should always entice the viewer to pick up the paper.

Everyone laughed as I feigned heart issues while looking over pages. I jokingly uttered, “I’ve seen worse, but I can’t remember when,” a few times. The truth is most of the papers looked pretty good, but there’s almost always a lot we can do to improve the look of our papers. And when our newspapers look better, it encourages people to pick them up and read them. Let’s face it, that’s what it’s all about.

I’ll be leading a publisher’s event in Washington state in a few days. I think I’ll encourage everyone to bring copies of their paper. It just makes my job easier.

The post Critiquing Common Issues first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Younger readers might not know what I’m writing about when I mention Facebook “memories.” Still, most of you are familiar with those daily reminders that pop up each morning to remind you of what you were doing one, two, or even ten years ago. Not long ago, a memory on Facebook reminded me of a post I’d created in 2014: “Over the next three weeks, I’ll be speaking in Minneapolis MN, Sioux Falls SD, Edmonton AB, Syracuse NY, and Phoenix AZ.”

It’s hard to imagine I used to spend that much time on the road. It seems like a different lifetime. Don’t get me wrong. I still speak at conventions occasionally, but not nearly as frequently as I did a few years ago. These days, I spend as much time redesigning newspapers as anything else. I’m learning that the more papers I redesign, the better I get at finding ways to make the pages draw readers without sacrificing content.

Clients often express concern about losing content at the beginning of the redesign process. One universal goal of redesigns seems to be to get as much text on the pages without increasing page count. Whenever I redesign a paper, I do something to reassure the client. I create an entire issue of the newly designed newspaper using the content from a recent issue.

I’m thrilled to show the publisher, editors, and others on staff the issue with bigger headlines, bigger photos, and easier-to-read text. For a moment, I feel like a magician. Unlike any magician you’ve seen, I will share a few of my “tricks” with you.

Headlines

Use bigger fonts with fewer words. Instead of “Central High School beats Austin-East to end 6-year losing streak,” I might use “Central ends streak!” in a big, bold font. Underneath, I might include a light subhead (generally in sans serif) describing the headline. I often use the original headline for the subhead:

Bobcats end streak!

Central High School beats Austin-East to end 6-year losing streak

The new headline (and subhead) often takes up no more room than the original headline yet appears to fill more space.

Photos

Since the pandemic, I’ve noticed in-person training has become a rarity. I lead a lot of webinars, yet I miss being in person with students. With less training, younger designers often haven’t learned the basic rules many of us learned long ago. One of these is the “shoulder rule.”

The shoulder rule goes like this: Most photos should be cropped to the shoulders. Cropping is one method I use to create more space for bigger headlines and more white space. It’s interesting how a cropped photo might take up less room on the page but appear larger. I often take photos of basketball players shooting a layup surrounded by other players, referees, and empty space and crop it to just the shooter’s upper body, tossing the ball with his outstretched arm toward the basket. I’ve heard the response, “That looks much better,” more times than I remember after cropping a photo like this.

Nameplate/Flag

My first step in redesigning any newspaper is creating a new flag for the front page. I often spend several days building the new nameplate. A newspaper’s flag is crucial. It either invites someone to look closer at the page or screams at them to throw the paper down.

Interestingly, many nameplates are much larger than they need to be. I think part of the reason for this is that many flags were first designed when bulkier fonts were in style. Newspapers often used multiple lines with “The,” “Press,” and “Chronicle” stacked.

In 2023, clean is in. By placing the flag on one line stretching across the width of the page, the reader is invited to look closer. Updating the flag makes the page more inviting by offering a cleaner, more dignified look.

The Rest of My Secrets

I could go on at the risk of sharing all of my secrets. I’m nearing the end of my allotted space, however, and this should give you and your staff enough material to make some simple yet noticeable improvements to your paper’s design right away.

The post Making More Space: Simple changes invite readers to pick up your paper first appeared on Our-Hometown.