Tuesday, August 23, 2011

OurTown Update!

Listeners of the World,

It’s OurTown “news time” again! We are making more changes to the site that will allow OurTown to continue to enhance and add new features while also improving our overall local editor support. These changes are not as exciting or flashy as our usual changes / enhances / or new features, but they are just as important when you think of OurTown.com as a whole.

We are going to an 80/20 percent split on all local ads entered into the ad-bot system starting September 1st, 2011. This change will not affect any current ads that were added under the 100/0 split era, and this change will also not cause any delays to the new ads being shown on the sites. The new ad-bot system will still have the regular pages you love and know with the addition of a few new steps that will allow the split to take place. These new steps are straight forward and easy, plus we will be standing by to answer any questions, issues, or comments!

Now along with this change is a new licensing change which will not affect current local editors who are grandfathered in with their sites. This change is due to OurTown coming out of Beta and starting to live up to its original plan (thanks in part to all of our current local editors which is why they are grandfathered in). Starting on September 1st, 2011 we will begin charging a monthly fee to all new local editors who will be given a free 90 day license to get their site up and running. After the 90 days the local editors will be asked to choose from one of our licensing packages ranging from a Free limited license to either a $29.95 or $49.95 monthly package. Now along with this we will be offering current local editors a 10% referral payout for any new local editors you refer who stay on after their first 90 days. This means if you refer someone and then after their 90s days they pick the $49.95 package you get 10% of that for each month that they continue their licensing agreement!

These changes are very important and will allow OurTown to continue to grow, improve and to compete with other local news sites. This will also enhance your ability to sell more ads at higher prices, because along with these changes are new features, enhanced support, and better metrics.

Now I know that there will be questions, concerns, and comments and we here at OurTown Media are happy to answer and address all of them. Please either email Chris Burnett – Cburnett@OurTown.com, our support line – Support@OurTown.com, or call 513-381-0777.


Your OurTown Superhero,

Chris