Overview
We are currently planning several enhancements to the existing content types in Metro Publisher. Along with the existing Location Review type, we will begin by introducing three new types: Album, Book, and Product Reviews. We plan to follow this initial release of these three new types with others such as Film and Event Reviews. But for now, we'd like to focus discussion on the first of these new content types.
We appreciate your input and are working hard to make sure that Metro Publisher continues to improve. These new features came directly from feedback and requests from you – our users.
Please read the notes below carefully and let us know what you think. Leave comments freely! Your insights are vital to our efforts.
Thank You!
Metro Publisher Support Squad
1. Album Review
Sample Album Review
- Navigation, Sprockets, and Ads: Like any normal piece of content, Reviews may be assigned to any section/subsection. Also, they will display the sprockets and ad slots of the section/subsection to which they assigned.
- Media Carousel: Like all content, the media carousel appears at the top of the page, if used.
- Album Data Points: Each review type will display unique data points
- Album Title
- Artist Name: tag
- Label Name: tag
- Release date
- Top Track
- Genre: tag
- Rating: Pro users – icons customizable via CSS
- Album art
- Buy links: Amazon, iTunes, and custom
- Content: Content field same as any other piece of content
- Tags, Related Links, and Comments: Same as any other piece of content
2. Book Review
Sample Book Review
- Book Data Points: Each review type will display unique data points
- Book Title
- Creator Name(s): tags (Author, Illustrator, Translator)
- Publisher Name: tag
- Release date
- Genre: tag
- Rating: Pro users – icons customizable via CSS
- Cover art
- ISBN Number
- Buy links: Amazon, iTunes, and custom
3. Product Review
Sample Product Review
- Product Data Points: Each review type will display unique data points
- Product Title
- Designer Name: tag
- Brand Name: tag
- Release date
- Category: tag
- Rating: Pro users – icons customizable via CSS
- Product photo
- Buy links: Amazon, iTunes, and custom
New Review Sprocket
Along with the new review types, there will be a new sprocket that will display reviews ordered by issue date or by rating.
Sample of Review Sprockets
Review Sprocket behaviors:
- Automated or hand-picked
- Display #
- Display either a simple list or show thumbnail and various data points
- Order by rating or issue date
- Type of reviews
- All review types
- One or more specific review types
- From
- All sections/subsections
- One or more specific sections/subsections
- Tag(s)
The rendering of the reviews in a sprocket will include some of the data points for each review type.
Renderings of different review types
For Album Review Types, it would be useful to insert an audio track preview. For example, check out this page on: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/
I don't think this would work as well if it were to be added as an asset in the media carousel.
You will have two options:
Media Carousel: Embed the Soundcloud player in the media carousel, as mentioned above by Rudi. It would work pretty well, but I think the a link idea would look better.
Preview Link: This is a general link that can be used to link to Soundcloud for an audio preview if you choose. It is a simple field with link text you can specify. Also, it has its own class, so you can style it how you please. How would that scenario work for you? (See sample below)
Will the "Buy on Amazon" link allow us to insert an Amazon Associates ID?
We include the list price in our reviews, so it would be good to have a field for this, as well. Also, it could be helpful to have an option to indicate if there are different formats available (i.e., print book, Kindle/ebook, etc.) with links to the different formats.
@Linda Grobman: Per the question about the Amazon ID – yes you will be able to add your Associates ID. There will be an Amazon settings page where you can input your Amazon Associates ID. Metro Publisher will then append any links to Amazon with the appropriate ID.
@Linda Grobman: Price and Format are great ideas. V1.0 of these new review types will be a somewhat manual process as you will be inputting the title, author etc. In the future we plan to add a smarter system where you can snarf the essential information via a query to Amazon or something like that, for example. So, we'll take your suggestion into mind as we move forward. In the mean time, you can add price and format info in the description field.
Great! Do you know when the new review tours will be available for us to use? Thanks for adding these. I know the book reviews will be a great addition for our site.
We are currently in the process of testing and releasing v2.10 right now which will include some great features such as:
The new review types and Location Roundups will be part of the following release (v2.11). We do these releases quarterly, so anticipate about 3-4 months from now.
Late reply back to your comment of February 20, 2014 05:03 --
Yes that Song Preview Link will work great. Awesome, thank you. Rudi