News Content - Our-Hometown

Is the system easy to use?

Our Hometown, Inc. — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 13:20:08 +0000

The batch news conversion utility was designed in conjunction with publishers of small to medium size community newspapers to leverage the newspaper’s content with minimal effort on the part of the publisher, editor, and sales and creative staffs. Here is the time budget allocation of a typical weekly newspaper once set up:

Newspaper Function	Web duties	Est. Time Spent Weekly
Editor	Upload all files used to print the paper to the system.	15 minutes
Sales Staff	Each time a print display ad is sold, give the newspaper website address and offer to run their print display ad on the website for 5% to 20% more. The publisher sets the price, but typically the upsell ranges from 20% of the print ad for small display ads to 5% for a full page ad.	1 minute each print display ad sale
Ad Creative Staff	Save pdf of all display ads upsold to the web during the week. Upload to the system weekly.	2 minutes each web display ad sale
Publisher	Assure paper and display ads are uploaded. Assure sales staff ask for the web order when selling display ads. Assure stock fill ads are run periodically in print. Spend 10 minutes a week promoting web site.	15 minutes

If you choose to enter all the stories individually with the WYSIWYG input form, the amount of time the editoral staff will spend depends on the number of stories and the electronic format in which the stories are stored.

In comparison to managing your own website independently or using a competitive service, you will always save time with Our-Hometown.com.

Can more time be spent?

Of course…but it’s entirely unnecessary. You could update the system every day, upload local directories, include community information, etc. The list of possible additions and added work on your site goes on and on.

However, the system works just fine with the effort levels described above and should cover internal and external costs and generate a small profit within 6 months.

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Can I have my news automatically emailed to readers that want it?

Our Hometown, Inc. — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 13:18:33 +0000

After entering his/her email address in a small form available on every page, within seconds of the web publication of each edition, the reader will receive an email that contains:

the top story and associated picture from each section of the online newspaper;
links to the full online edition;
and 4 display ads

Readers are able to easily remove their email from the list at any time.

The post Can I have my news automatically emailed to readers that want it? first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Should I put all my news online ?

Our Hometown, Inc. — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 13:11:22 +0000

We highly recommend putting most, if not all of, your news, letters to the editor, editorials, schedules and other content that appears in your newspaper on your website. The more information you provide your readers, the more valuable is your site. Additionally, the more pages you have, the higher your chances of being found on a search engine. Even though we suggest you put all or most of your news online as soon as it is available, you are not required to do so.

The post Should I put all my news online ? first appeared on Our-Hometown.

How are stories entered ?

Our Hometown, Inc. — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 13:10:54 +0000

Our Batch News Conversion service converts your files to HTML, uploads them to your website and indexes and archives them. The service accepts QuarkXPress, InDesign, Pagemaker, MS Word, Word Perfect and many other formats. Regardless of pagination and file structure, the services will convert your files into a sleak and easy to use online format. It works perfectly with newspapers that paginate, have a file for each page or section, use more than one type of software and even for those that paste up. In most cases, publishers simply use the files as prepared for printing without any changes. Non-pagination file formats such as MS Word can result in additional processing charges unless our filenaming convention is used.

The systems also contains a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) input form accessed from a browser that is designed for customers who want to upload “breaking news” in between issues or to make corrections on their own. Other services offer only TEXTAREA input forms that limit fonts and other stylistic elements. With our WYSIWYG form you see the story exactly as it will appear. In addition to being able to easily stylize anyway you want, you can drag and drop images directly into the story. IBM PC version is available in full release now. The MAC version is available for OS X machines or higher.

The post How are stories entered ? first appeared on Our-Hometown.

How do I add a video to a story?

Our Hometown, Inc. — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 17:03:51 +0000

Log in to your website by clicking the Login button at the top of your newspaper’s homepage.
Navigate to the story you wish to add the video to. In other words, click on the story’s headline so that you are viewing the full text of the story.
Click the Edit tab that appears above the story’s headline.
On the Edit page, scroll down to the bottom of the page. There should be a purple tab labeled “Extra”. Click this and the controls for uploading a video should appear to the right.
Under the Videos heading, click Browse (Windows) or Choose Files (Mac) to select a video file from your computer, then click Upload to begin uploading it to the story. Most standard video formats will be accepted (AVI, MOV, MPG, FLV and MP4). The video file may not exceed 512 MB in size. We recommend posting videos less than 10 minutes long.
Once the video has been uploaded (which can take several minutes for a large file), the file selection box will disappear and be replaced with the video’s filename and file size.
Scroll to the bottom of the Edit page and click Save Story.

The post How do I add a video to a story? first appeared on Our-Hometown.

How do I send an announcement of a specific story to my e-mail mailing list?

Our Hometown, Inc. — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 17:03:37 +0000

Log in to your website by clicking the Login button at the top of your newspaper’s homepage.
Navigate to the story you wish to announce to your mailing list. In other words, click on the story’s headline so that you are viewing the full text of the story.
Click the Shout It Out tab that appears above the story’s headline.
You will be shown a preview of the announcement e-mail. Verify that everything looks correct, and then click Send Update.

The post How do I send an announcement of a specific story to my e-mail mailing list? first appeared on Our-Hometown.

How do I allow free access to an entire category?

Our Hometown, Inc. — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 17:03:22 +0000

Log in to your website by clicking the Login button at the top of your newspaper’s homepage.
In your Site Settings menu, select Subscriptions – Online Subscription Settings.
On the Online Subscription Settings page, scroll down to the Unrestricted Categories selection box.
Click on the category that you wish to make free access. It will become highlighted blue. If you wish to select multiple free access categories, hold down CTRL (Windows) or COMMAND (Mac) and click on each desired category.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Configuration.

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How do I allow free access to a specific story, if my website is password-protected?

Our Hometown, Inc. — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 17:03:06 +0000

Log in to your website by clicking the Login button at the top of your newspaper’s homepage.
Navigate to the story you wish to make free access. In other words, click on the story’s headline so that you are viewing the full text of the story.
Click the Edit tab that appears above the story’s headline.
Check the Free Access checkbox, which appears just below the Categories selection on the Edit page.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Story. The story will now automatically show a red “Free Access” label next to its headline.

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How do I delete a story?

Our Hometown, Inc. — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 17:02:54 +0000

Log in to your website by clicking the Login button at the top of your newspaper’s homepage.
Navigate to the story you wish to edit. In other words, click on the story’s headline so that you are viewing the full text of the story.
Click the Edit tab that appears above the story’s headline.
If the story contains any photos, click on the Options menu beneath each photo’s thumbnail and select Delete Image.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Delete Story. You will be asked to confirm your choice. Click Delete again when prompted.

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How do I change the order of stories within a category?

Our Hometown, Inc. — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 17:02:39 +0000

Log in to your website by clicking the Login button at the top of your newspaper’s homepage.
In your Site Settings menu, select Content – Articles.
Using the dropdown menus at the top of the Articles page, select the desired Edition date and Category.
The page will refresh to show the headlines of the stories in the chosen category for the chosen issue date.
You may change the order of the stories by clicking on the four-way arrow to the left of each headline and dragging it up or down.
When the stories are in the desired order, click Save Changes at the bottom of the list.

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