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Discover Our Hometown's Versatile & Affordable Prepress & Website CMS for Community Newspapers
Add Your Content Online, Export for Print Layout, and Publish Online & Offline. Pay Per Paper - No Seat Charges
Export Choices
Moving to a prepress system doesn't have to be hard - start with 1 section or even 1 story, and limit your process disruption. As people learn the new system, roll it out section by section.
Exporting stories for use in Adobe InDesign print layout & online publication has never been easier.
Editor Notifications
Keep your entire team up-to-date - let specific groups or people know when an article is ready for review, when suggestions or comments have been added, or when an article is approved and ready to publish with our notification system.
Article Statuses
Update articles based on their status in the production process. Is it an idea for approval, pending review from an editor, or ready to be published?
Keep everyone up-to-date on when an article requires additional work or is ready to be published with customizable article statuses.
Email to Article
With "Email to Post", let reporters & other contributors input their articles into the system as easily as clicking "send" from their email. Editors can, then update or approve articles & set them live on site or prepare them for export for print layout.
Press Release: A Versatile Prepress and Website CMS for Community Newspapers
Our Hometown announces its new prepress and website content management system for community newspapers. Utilizing publisher interviews and feedback, they have developed a robust yet easy-to-use digital platform built on top of WordPress. Newspapers can create content via their website, and then export those web stories and images for print layout in Adobe InDesign, all through a system that is affordable for any size newspaper.
Our Hometown’s prepress system is designed to be phased-in when needed, to avoid any disruption in the print operation. Export one article, one section, or a whole issue. Papers using an integrated prepress system for the first time are able to step into production, section by section, reducing the risk of error while minimizing the number of staff members requiring training up front.
Using workflow tools, including “Article Status” and “Editor Notifications”, any newsroom can increase their operational efficiencies with Our Hometown’s Prepress CMS, simultaneously preparing articles for print and web publication.
“We are trying to present alternatives to an industry that is dominated by large companies providing publishing software that is complicated and expensive to small and medium-sized community newspapers”, explains Matt Larson, President & CEO.
For the last year, Our Hometown beta-tested its prepress CMS in select newsrooms around the globe. As papers integrated the system into their print operations, the feedback generated was used to develop and enhance features publishers need to support their newsroom processes.
“Through extensive user testing with our customers, we have designed a platform that can support daily papers, but at a price a weekly publication can afford.” explained Mr. Larson.
Our Hometown’s prepress option is now available for integration with websites using their WordPress-powered website platform. They are offering new customers a no-risk, free 30-day trial of their prepress system to start at any time after their new website launches. This allows newsrooms who haven’t used a prepress system before to decide if it fits their processes without a long-term, upfront commitment - if they decide they don’t like it, the feature is simply turned off.
For more information or to schedule a demo, contact Matt Larson at mcl@our-hometown.com.
Features & Services | Our Hometown | The Competition |
---|---|---|
Prepress CMS | Compose and edit content in WordPress CMS. Export articles, images, categories, and editions via XML for import into InDesign. Hot backup of database offsite. | Proprietary CMS priced at a point only available to dailies. Little focus on feature development. Requires servers on site. |
New Feature Development | Engineering Installs, Modifies, and Updates Proprietary & 3rd Party Plugins to match publisher specifications | Slow development time because everything must be custom coded |
Hosting and Support | Amazon Web Services cloud hosting for up to 100,000 page views per month included. 24/7 technical support. | Expensive on-site servers with downloaded software |
Fees | Fixed monthly cost for unlimited users | Charge per seat |
Contract | 30 day termination period | Multi-year obligations |
Usability and Training | Our custom-developed WordPress themes are intuitive to use, easy to adjust & include expert training + online documentation. | Clunky interface. Difficult to learn. |