Release schedule for the Newspaper Association of America’s MediaXchange March 8-11
Visit TownNews.com at booth #1850
MOLINE Ill. – Move over Gutenberg. Nearly 600 years since the invention of movable type TownNews.com is releasing a new content management system that has drag-and-drop movable blocks of content for Internet sites.
BLOX CMS is being released for public viewing at the Newspaper Association of America’s MediaXchange March 8-11 in Las Vegas.
BLOX allows editors web masters or others designated by the newspaper to place programmable and movable blocks of content any place on a Web site. The blocks can be moved by newspaper staff members or can be programmed to move appear or disappear at designated times and dates.
Each block can be programmed to pull in text photos videos graphics html documents related links and portable document files. Smart blocks can change structure or design in response to the type of content they are fed (video versus text for example).
All the content is managed in a centralized database and content can be easily shared between other newspapers on BLOX CMS.
The new CMS relies heavily on tagging including content type section location and relational. Each item – whether text graphic photo or video – is a separate item that can be tagged. TownNews.com has built an export mechanism that will allow tagged data to be fed to The Associated Press Yahoo! group news feeds or other locations.
BLOX CMS contains its own word processor and photo editor that can be linked with commercial word processors and photo editors. On the drawing board are plans that would allow BLOX content to export to Adobe InDesign and other page design products.
Later this spring TownNews.com plans to release an integrated social marketplace solution merging business information (default business listings as well as detailed profiles) with user-generated content (videos photos etc) calendar information and advertising content (both display and classified) – all under a single sign-on. BLOX Social Marketplace will allow businesses and members of the public – if granted permission by the newspaper – to manage commenting advertising content and reviews on business profile pages.
BLOX CMS is a hosted software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution hosted at the TownNews.com data centers in New York City and Chicago. In addition BLOX hosting utilizes the Akamai world-wide content delivery network. The BLOX project was headed up by Brad Ward TownNews.com’s vice president of technology chief programmer Patrick O’Lone and Christine Masters lead product development manager.
“We are very proud of BLOX CMS ” said TownNews.com General Manager Marc Wilson. “We think BLOX and BLOX Social Marketplace will set the new standard for content management systems.”
About TownNews.com
TownNews.com based in Moline Ill. is majority owned by Lee Enterprises (LEE) a premier publisher of daily weekly online and specialty publications. TownNews.com hosts more than 1 500 online publications and offers a wide variety of products and services to U.S. newspapers. For more information visit www.townnews.com.
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If you’d like more information about this topic please call Greg Booras at 904/794-1400 or e-mail Greg at gbooras@townnews.com.
