Ourtown On the Go

Listeners of the World,

A lot of technology lately has been moving towards mobile. Whether it's mobile apps, mobile web pages or mobile computing in general web sites need to be able to be seen and accessed on small screens. You could be sitting at a bus stop or waiting for dinner, being able to access everything from your phone is very useful in our busy lives today.

Ourtown 3.0 is taking this into account and as we develop the new site we are testing on the iPhone, android enabled devices, Windows Mobile, as well as other smartphone operating systems so that you will be able to take Ourtown with you on the go. Imagine being out in the community and reporting an event directly from your phone as it is happening.

Your tech wizard,
Michael

Happy Early ThanksGiving!

Listeners of the World,

I just wanted wish everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving from me and the OurTown staff who will be taking off the rest week off to spend with families. We will be back to our regular posting next week with some more new features that are coming soon on the new site.

Your OurTown Super Hero,

Chris

What's Coming!

Listeners of the World,

As everyone is aware (at least if you have been up to date on this blog) we are in the process of doing a major over haul on our site OurTown.com. The project is big and time consuming and will be released in about 5 months. Until then I wanted to give our viewers a little more information each week about the new features and capabilities of the site. This week I wanted to focus in on the new home page.

As you can see our current homepage has a lot of information on it, maybe too much information. We are in the process of eliminating all of the extra information that is not that important. We are rebuilding our search on the home page to make it simpler to find the town or area that you are looking for and to also make it faster. This new search will be the prominent piece of the new front page. We are also only going to include the latest local stories written by our local editors instead of national news that you can get anywhere. The design overall will be a simpler design focused in on the local aspect of the site. This should provide for a cleaner, easier, and more informative front page.

Just remember this is just one of the changes coming............stayed tuned for more!

Your OurTown Super Hero,

Chris

Football and OurTown!

Listeners of the World,

We at the corporate office have been blessed with a great sports fall overall with us being based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. We are all big football fans and for once we really have something to cheer for besides Ohio State Football! We now have the undefeated Cincinnati Bearcats who are at an impressive 10-0 start and the Cincinnati Bengals who are leading their division with a 7-2 record. Plus to top it all off The Ohio State Buckeyes are going to the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1997. Yes we are loving the weekends watching our teams win again and again and for the first time in a long time we might see extra football for all three teams in one season. As for OurTown we have started the process on the new site and hopefully you will see the highlights for all of these teams on there real soon. But until then please check out the active site which is still running some impressive material!

Your OurTown Super-Hero,

Chris

The Process

Listeners of the World,

As you well know we are in the middle of a redesign to our site "OurTown.com". I just wanted to give an update on where we are in the process and maybe get some feed back at the same time. We have just narrowed down our designers to a possible three companies that are now in the process of creating mockups for our new OurTown site. We should have all of them by the end of the week and then we will announce the winner to the world. Also our team of programmers have already begun on the rewrite of the site and we will have updates on the different features they lets us know about them. Please feel free to comment with any type of feature that you think would be helpful or "cool" to have if you were creating a news site (which you can, sign up at OurTown). Until next time, keep searching for the real news!

Your OurTown Super Hero

Chris

Listeners of the World,

Ourtown 3.0 will be a complete overhaul of the system built from the ground up using new technology to keep up with your needs. The new site will be made using the ASP.NET framework to give it flexibility and power. Not only are we changing the language used to power Ourtown we are completely redesigning the database used to store your data. This will give the site both speed and greater flexibility. We are also completely redesigning the look and feel of Ourtown to give it more of a 2.0 look so the site can stay simple and compelling. All of these changes behind the scenes will allow us to build for the future and allow for smooth integrations with other applications such as Social Media software.

Your Tech Wizard,
Michael

The Ever Changing OurTown!

Listeners of the World,

OurTown.com has been through a couple of site changes and looks very different now from when it first showed up on the scene in Beta a little over two years ago. Well we have learned from our mistakes and have gathered a lot of feedback from our local editors and have put together plans for the "real deal" OurTown. We are not only re-designing our site look and logo, but also our marketing and business plan to meet the needs of the forever growing news market. We have just set the plan in motion with the completion of the new Design Document for OurTown.com and are well on our way of making the world a little more informed one "OurTown" at a time. Of course we will keep all of you updated as we move forward with the new re-design and how we are still improving the current site.

Your OurTown Super-Hero,

Chris

What is OurTown????

Listeners of the World,

Local News, Views, Search, and Commerce is the tag line that sums up what OurTown.com is all about. We provide a platform or "pedestal" if you will, to let the people in the community post and write about what is important to them and their community. Instead of the same old news you will find very hyper-local articles unique to each community or town across the United States. We also provide these same people with a unique way to make money while doing what they love. Unlike other hyper-local sites where you continuously provide the site with information or stories for free, we have developed a system where you have the chance to make a nice amount of money. As of right now we are expanding out and trying to fill in the US map with local editors from all over the country. Once we have this done the possibilities will be endless. If this sounds interesting please visit OurTown.com and let us know what you think!


Your OurTown Super-hero,

Chris

OurTown Goals!

Listeners of the World,

Welcome to the new and improved OurTown.com information and news blog. This blog will be dedicated to bringing you the latest news and information about OurTown. You will be reading updates from a variety of people involved in the OurTown Community and maybe some who are not! We hope that you will find this fun and compelling as well as informational. If you would like to know more information right away please visit OurTown.com and go to our " About OurTown" section. Otherwise check in each day for something NEW!

Your OurTown Super-hero,

Chris