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Webinar | What’s new in the BLOX Now app and BLOX CMS
Webinar recording now available.
At our November customer webinar, Susan Bell, product manager, and Christine Masters, director of product management, will show off what’s new in the BLOX Now app and in BLOX CMS.
Topics will include:
- Exciting updates to the BLOX Now app, including: lucrative new ad positions, powerful full-site searching, updated weather features, and enhanced subscription support.
- An introduction to BLOX Media Library, a new way to keep track of images and other binary files in BLOX CMS.
- Fighting ad inventory fraud within your apps with new “app-ads.txt” support.
- . . . and much more!
Ready to get started? Watch it now.
Feature request: Support for Facebook Instant Article Metering/Subscription
Facebook is offering an instant article paywall that lets publishers keep 100 percent of subscription revenue.
Details here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tdcq6ocqd1x3hoo/2019-07-25%2013.36%20Subscriptions%20within%20Facebook%20Instant%20Articles.mp4?dl=0
The page that talks about instant article paywall(https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instant-articles/subscriptions/) shows that the integration requires custom FB Pixels events being triggered, on login, and during purchase.
This level of integration doesn’t appear to be something that can be done in GTM, nor in BLOX templates, and seems to require BLOX software support.The page that discusses account linking (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instant-articles/subscriptions/account-linking) mentions the need for “signed pixel events.”
That page shows sample code in PHP to generate the signed data, which requires access to the FB App secret, which would be unique to each BLOX website, just as the FB App is unique to that website.
This whole process requires running code server side to keep secrets. The “account linking” event requires an account_id to link the FB user to the BLOX user (for subscriber access details.) The only really reliable/secure account_id is the user’s UUID, which isn’t exposed in a cookie, so the front-end doesn’t have access to it .
Feature request: Add column in Editorial/Assets next to Title, Status, Sections and Start Time for Notification Date and Time.
What I would like, if possible, is to have a column in Editorial/Assets next to Title, Status, Sections and Start Time for Notification Date and Time.
1) What problem(s) does this idea solve? Why do you need this idea implemented? Provide as many problems or use cases as possible.
As of now, to remember or view what assets are set for you have to open each individual asset. This takes many steps and extra time. Also, as you know, opening an asset after a notification has been set increases the odds the post is prone to errors.
2) How often would you use this feature?
Daily. It would be used just like the Title, Status, Sections and Start Time columns.
3) How many people in your organization would use this feature?
Everyone who posts assets.
private browsing / Incognito Mode Detection
It would be nice to have a detection and pop up for when people are viewing our site in incognito mode. It should allow for a message and perhaps a promo code to purchase a subscription at a special offer.
* It should work like the ad blocker detector*
PRNewswire
How do I block PRNewswire from getting included in my Town News Content Exchange?
All PR Newswire content gets assigned to a specific set of section tags under Partners -> PR_Newswire. You can adjust your importer to exclude those section tags, or build an importer to import just the content exchange sections you want to import.
capturing still frames from video
Since Blox includes the ability to capture a POSTER or PREVIEW image from a video clip, could we have the ability to save those captures as individual images? That way, we could easily create a photo gallery or collection from stills taken from a video clip.
Find user: default to admin
When creating articles, our writers typically want to assign an author to the story. When selecting an author, the "find user" query defaults to ANY user. It would be wonderful to be able to have this default to ADMIN so that our own users (authors) would appear at the top of the list.
Whole website search options
Any ideas on a search bar that includes multiple types of results like articles, classifieds, calendar, and marketplace. For us, we have a search on our homepage but it only includes the classifieds and searching, for say, a town name and receiving all of the assets that go along with that would make it much simpler for our viewers. Has anyone found a work-around for this?
Any way to disable Amp for just one specific story/url?
When we embed HTML assets in article assets these html assets are only shown as links on Amp pages. Is there a way to disable Amp for specific articles in which the HTML asset is integral to the story?
Webinar | Introducing BLOX Now, a better mobile app for local media
Webinar recording now available.
Taking cues from social media, the BLOX Now mobile app eschews conventional news app design in favor of a single, continuously-scrolling stream of community news and events that keeps users engaged. At our June customer webinar, Susan Bell, BLOX Now senior product manager, and Christine Masters, director of product management, introduced the BLOX Now mobile app.
Topics included:
Increasing user engagement with a hybrid news and information app.
Feature highlights, including: in-stream video playback, push notifications, and convenient fly-out menus.
Monetizing your app with Google DFP integration.
Managing your app, website, and mobile site in one easy workflow.
. . . and much more.
Are you ready to get started . . . now? Webinar recording now available.
Customize Form Appearance
What I thought is a simple change but I can't find anything related- I'm looking to remove the drop shadow on my form headers. I saw other TownNews customers sites without a drop shadow and wanted to do the same. On here is a picture of a current form for us with the drop shadow. Thank you!
Batch edit utility - change more than 25 at a time
There are several different requests in here:
- A "mass" batch edit. We are working on this currently... it should be available in Q2 of this year. It allows you to create a search and then apply batch edit to that entire search results, even if it affects thousands of assets. There will be an extra confirmation process where you must type in the number of assets so that you are sure that you know how many assets you are affecting. The task on large amounts of assets happens as a background task (so it can take as long as it needs) and then sends you an email when you're done. So, for Nick's needs, this would definitely work).
- The ability to see more assets on a search results page in the BLOX admin. The solution for this will likely come as part of our new backend UI, which will likely end up being some kind of infinity scroll.
Lastly, there is the request for a batch edit function to change headlines and captions. To be honest, we are worried about allowing content to be changed in a batch editing process. Firstly, it's considered bad SEO to have similar titles on multiple pages in your site. Secondly, having all headlines (such as on a vertical gallery) is kind of annoying and repetitive to the reader.
On the other hand, I of course realize that if you don't add a title, we'll use the filename instead. And typing 200 unique, accurate titles is a very time-consuming task to say the least! Also, the only thing worse than a vertical gallery with repeated identical headlines is a vertical gallery with filenames as headlines instead! And, we currently provide no mechanism for them to be hidden as an option.
However, maybe we can fix some of those underlying problems instead. Basically, we're thinking that batch editing headlines and captions is a symptom of a bigger problem rather than a problem in and of itself.
What about something like this:
- A collection asset has the option of not showing photos and captions, even if they exist.
- In places where we have to show some kind of title (such as search results) maybe we show the parent's title instead?
Or:
- A way for the photo itself to know whether or not it has a unique headline, and if it does, display it. If not, display the parent (unless on a collection page). I would have to think more on how it can know it is a unique title...
Freature Request: Form Success Page/Messages
When a user signs up for any email reach newsletters, they are greeted with a blank page reading only "Thank You" after completing the signup.
There is no link to return the user to the home page, there is no site navigation, or branding, or ads.
When a user signs up for a newsletter, there should be an option to redirect them to a site page, or static page.
This can be accomplished by adding a "Landing Page URL:" or "Thank You Page URL:" field to the Edit List dialog for individual campaigns.
Have a close option on mobile admin site
I often make some quick fixes to stories in the morning from the admin interface on my phone. But since there is no close option, it keeps me locked in the asset. Am I missing something? Is there a way to truly "close" the asset?
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