Dear Metro Publisher Community,
Hello! We are writing to let you know that Release v 1.10 will be installed on November 8th, 2010. As always you are not required to program anything. That is what we love to do! In this release, we are presenting you some really great features. So, please read this newsletter in its entirety because there are a number of great features that require your activation. Here we go!
Catapult Your Content with These Social Media Features!
Social media has increased the relevance and reach of individual voices. We at Metro Publisher have been working together to make it easier for publishers to take advantage. In this release we have added several Facebook features, and have also included a re-cap of all of our social media sprockets. Use these social media tools to expand the reach of your content and save your editor(s) time!
Facebook Connect Enhancement
We have upgraded our Facebook Connect Integration to be more powerful. If you choose to set it up, Facebook Connect will allow the comments by your readers to appear on their Facebook walls. In order to take advantage, you will need to create a new Application ID and Application Secret Code on Facebook. It is a free service and takes 10 minutes.
read more...
Automatically Post to Facebook
Whenever your editor(s) publishes content (articles, blogs, videos, reviews, or events), they may be automatically posted to your Facebook Fan Page along with the content’s thumbnail image.
Read more
Facebook Likebox
The Facebook Likebox can now be inserted into every content type. When readers click the like icon, their approval will be presented in the Likebox on their Facebook Profile Page and the ‘News Feed’ homepage.
Read more
More Space for Social Media Widgets
The area where Social media widgets are inserted into your content is now bigger and will accommodate various new social media widgets that include larger icons and counters.
Read more
Sprockets for Social Media
Facebook Activity Feed Sprocket
Update readers when users like content on your site and when users share content from your site back to Facebook.
Facebook Like Box Sprocket
Enables your readers to show their thumbs up approval to their Facebook friends by clicking the ‘like’ button without leaving your website.
Twitter Sprocket
Stream a tweet or re-tweet directly on your site.
Video Sprocket
Host videos via the 2nd most viewed search engine in the world: YouTube!
Facets
Metro Publisher has unique tools to provide a rich location search experience. We examined our current offering and reviewed your requests to see how we could increase the functionality and flexibility of location categories and searches.
As a result, we will be implementing faceted categories and searches. Facets will provide a way to categorize a wider range of businesses and give you and your readers more control over location and directory searches.
Some of the new things you'll be able to do:
- Change the location type of an existing location at any point
- Multi-select location types for a given business/location, like Cafe & Store
- Choose from many more subcategories
- Set up Location searches for readers that include multiple location types, like Restaurants, Night Clubs, and Snack Bars
- Set up Directory Categories with more granularity
- Designate any location as an editor's pick, a staff pick or a distribution point of your magazine
With the introduction of facets, Metro Publisher location pages are now much more powerful.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Enhancement: Microdata in a Macro Way
Search engines are like vacuum cleaners sucking up data wherever it can be found, but they continue to be very poor at actually understanding what a given piece of content is about. So search engines want a publisher to tell them that a review is a review and what field specifically is the rating (if you provide one). The same holds true for events vs. articles. When does the event start? When does it end? And where on map is this place?
With the new release, we start introducing new microdata points that the search engines can understand from your content. This feature DOES NOT require editors to do anything different. But it does underscore the importance of filling out location information as completely as possible. Over time this information will become key to your locations, reviews, and events showing up in a variety of new formatted search results in Google, Yahoo! and Bing.
Automation on Section Pages Change
The automation feature for section pages has gotten even easier! As a result of several requests from clients via the support site, we have modified the behavior for automation of section pages. Previously, a section page would only pull up feature stories that were assigned to that specific section but would not show stories assigned to its subsection. For example, if you had a section called say "Arts & Culture" with two subsections such as "Theater and Galleries" an article needed to be assigned to the main parent section "Arts & Culture" to appear in the section page. This created some extra work for editors. Now, if "Arts & Culture" is set to automatically show latest postings, the section page will pull any stories in the section itself as well as stories assigned to its subsections.
Comments on Featured Stories
Feature stories now include a small link that displays the number of comments (if there are any) which links directly to the comments page for that piece of content.
In Closing
Our goal with every release is to make Metro Publisher better. Thankfully, we have tremendous insight--from you. The support questions, feedback, and future ideas are what has driven these latest features into creation. Please continue being proactive on the Community and Support Site. It is the best forum to be heard.
Thank You,
Your Metro Publisher Support Squad
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