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Frequently asked questions and feature list 1. Complete website Service
2. News Conversion for existing websites
3. Display advertising solution for existing websites
4. Refund/Return Policies and Shipping Information
1. Complete website Service Profits Are Our-Hometown.com Customers' websites profitable? A study of the orders for subscriptions to the print edition and the orders for classified ads generated by our customers' mostly weekly newspaper web sites that utilize these order forms indicated that the average customer makes a net profit from these orders alone. The study included all costs: our fees, labor needed to upload news and ads, delivery of print subscriptions, etc. Additionally, the study found that at least 75% of the web orders are from customers that, had it not been for the website, would not have ordered. The study found that many customers are enhancing the profitability of their online editions with sales of display ads on the web. Some offer to upgrade a print display ad to a print and web ad as an inducement to increase the ad size or to sign a long term contract; others sell them outright. These ads are a great value for the advertiser because of the high local traffic, the high visibility (being presented on every page) and the low cost (typicially around 5% of the print ad - all going to the publisher). A new program that greatly simplifies the selling of display ads could result in web profits equal to 5% of the newspaper's total print display ad sales! See the billing insert used to do this. How are stories entered ? 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 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. More details can be found in this press release. 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. All News Online Should I put all my news online ? 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. What about my paid print circulation ? In our experience, in many markets, putting all the news you print on the web will not have a negative impact on circulation. You may lose a few very frugal readers and a few out-of-towners that are unhappy with late delivery via second class mail. On the other hand, you will add print subscribers because you gain access to a much wider audience. Your online edition is like a free sample of the information you print that costs you nothing to deliver. You always have the option using our paid model or you can delay web publication to protect newsstand sales and subscriptions.Print or Web, which do the readers prefer ? The existence of your web edition doesn't change the fact that most people consider paper is the most convenient display media. Many people still prefer to read their news from a paper not from a computer monitor. Most readers use online newspapers for the archives (see below) and for convenience while they are sitting at their computer. Publishers that are concerned about affecting circulation often use our paid online subscription model. How much space comes with the account? Because we encourage you to make all your content available to online readers, we do not impose any charges or limits on the amount of storage space available to you. How do readers find old stories? In addition to being able to search by keyword from every page on your
site, readers can easily access the archives to view a list of each of
your issues by publication date. Can I put display ads from the paper on the web? Yes! You can put display ads on your web site like they appear, next to your news, in your print edition. Many of our competitors put display ads in directories that make the reader search for the ad. Not our system--the display ads are right there on every page. Are display ads on the web better than banner ads? Yes, by far. The advantages are:
How else can readers find online display ads? The system includes a "shopping page" that contains all the online display ads or if you have more ads you can classify them by marketplace: Real Estate, Automotive, etc. In addition, the ads can be found on the search engines based on the words in the ad. How can I figure out the value to my advertisers? See this report on valuation of online display advertising. How are classified ads handled ? The system has 4 options for your classifieds. When the reader clicks the "Classifieds" button they can see:
Does Our-Hometown.com provide a national or regional database of classifieds ? No, but you can link your newspaper's website to one through the "Classifieds" button. While conventional wisdom dictates that readers want access to a large database of classifieds, for the type of markets served by the community newspaper, that is not the case. With the exception of collectibles, community newspaper readers are generally disinterested in making purchases from outside their locality. Can people place a classified ad through my website? Yes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, people can easily submit a classified
ad with a customized classified order form. The orders arrive via email
and you can simply cut and paste the ad into the paper.
Can people place an order for a print and/or online subscription though my web site? Newspapers can take orders for just print subscriptions or can also use our online subscription model to charge for access to web content. Open archives continue to be a major source of traffic from the search engines as they draw in readers that are looking for information on the issues covered by the newspaper. Tracking shows that little to no traffic is lost when paid subscriptions are implemented, so you can proceed without worrying about a loss in value for online advertisers. See our current recommended pricing that provides an economic incentive for out of town subscribers to take the online only subscription, increasing newspaper profits by eliminating mailing expense. No late delivery complaints is an additional benefit. Local online only subscriptions are at the same rate as the print edition. This also increases newspaper profits by eliminating delivery costs. Can I have my news automatically emailed to readers that want it? 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:
Readers are able to easily remove their email from the list at any time. Is the system easy to use? 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: |
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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. Other Features How is hosting handled? Your newspaper is hosted at a secured facility with an OC-3 communications backbone, redundant connections, an on-site UPS and diesel backup generators. Disk backups are taken 3 times a week to two off site facilities. There are no limits on traffic to your site or content downloaded. Does the newspaper get its own dot com address? Yes, your website can be accessed from a URL such as "www.mypaper.com". If your readers bookmark any page within your website, it will contain the "www.mypaper.com" address. The availability of dot com addresses is controlled by other services and you purchase the right to use one of your choosing from them. We will help you in obtaining or transfering your dot com address. Can I make websites for my customers? You can add as many websites under your domain as you want (www.mypaper.com/customername). This includes customer sites. What about email addresses? will they contain mypaper.com ? Yes, we can set up one or more email addresses with your dot com address. Can I find my website on search engines? We periodically submit your site to all the major search engines and design your site so as to increase the likelihood it will be found there by readers from your market. Can I run banner ads? Banner ads can be "rotated" at the top of every page or run in fixed position on every page. See display ads for a more efficient and less time consuming way to make money off of online ads. What about reports about readership? The system provides you 40 specialized reports by the number one web reporting company, WebTrends.com. Complete Websites Service |
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Notes to Hometown News Service pricing: You will be billed net 30 every 4 weeks. If you
send stories from more than one newspaper for one domain you will still
be charged for each newspaper. This includes "zoned editions"
that only have a few pages different. The group discount applies. 2. News Conversion for existing websites XML News Feed Some newspaper may want to have a feed of all their content for their own purposes such as feeding another system. If you request this feature we will make an output.xml file available for downloading that contains the Elements:
XML News Feed Pricing
Display Ad Service/Server Price List:
4. Refund/Return Policies and Shipping Information Profits Refund PolicyThere are no refunds. All services including rework are fully billable. Charges for rework when caused by machine, software, human or any other error
may be waived at the sole discretion of Our-Hometown, Inc.
No returns or exchanges. Once services are rendered or product is delivered they are considered accepted
by the customer, no explicit acceptance by the customer is required.
All shipping to the customer location is within 5-9 business days of shipping date.
Last update effective: 1/1/2008 |
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