The New Video News Network !

I have been writing a lot about the future of news and where it will take us.....will it be all video, streams of media, all mobile, or will the newspaper somehow survive.  Nobody knows for certain, but one could take a very calculated guess and point towards video / mobile.  I had also talked about a new type of news site that we were building to incorporate into OurTown.com as well as have it stand on its own......VNN ( Video News Network).  

VNN is going to be a video network (much like YouTube), but it is focused on local news and local happenings.  Regular people will be able to upload video in real time to the network as the actual news is happening.  Then our users can view and browse this content through many categories including down the the zip code.  VNN will eventually have "video editors" who can do 3 essential things.....curate the news, comment on the news and create social interaction with viewers as they respond to the news. . We will also have a strict admin control over the site so that it doesn't turn into a YouTube with many off topic videos and keep it limited to what is important to the site and its users.

VNN will become that place for local news stations to upload their daily broadcasts, amateur journalist to upload their findings and breaking stories via video, and also a perfect place for any vlogger !  Since we are incorporated into YouTube itself (meaning our VNN videos get the YouTube video SEO treatment) we become the best choice for these types of users.

We are in the beginning stages of VNN and will hopefully grow into our own over this coming year.  I invite you to check out the BETA site and let us know what you think in the comments.

BETA site - VNN

Your OurTown Superhero,
Chris

New Features

Listeners of the World,

Technology is always evolving, and with this comes new ideas, features, tools, apps, and more that can be integrated into your favorite sites. Here at OurTown Media we believe that because of this evolution we must always be looking towards the future with constant updates, and adding new tools / features to our site. Today we are rolling out two brand new features:

OurTown Video - We have always had the capability to display YouTube videos on OurTown via our "YouTube" island, by coping a certain part of the video URL. Now we have enhance this feature to now being able to copy any video URL from any of the top online video sites (YouTube, Hulu, Dailymotion, etc.) and pasting it into our video section. We have also enhanced the section so that you are able to enter in a title, description, keywords, and have the ability to see a preview before you place it on the page. This allows our local editors to keep a library of videos on their sites, without worry of losing the videos once they delete the specific island (video widget).

As well as the addition of the new video section is the addition of Video Pages to each of the local OurTown sites. Each individual site will now have a main video page that users can access to browse through all the videos that are on that site! This will allow for a much better video experience on OurTown! We will also be rolling out a Main Video Page for the entire OurTown site which will be able to be access from our Homepage and show all the videos across the entire site!

New OurTown Page Layouts - We have also rolled out new layouts for our local editors to be able to explore different set ups and curating options. This will allow for more visual stimulating and pleasing layouts that will give a much better reading experience to our users. We previously had 9 layouts and have now added 5 more. We will continue to improve and enhance our layouts over time and will eventually get to the point where if you can think it up, you can lay your page out like it!

We are always updating and adding features to the site and still have many more features coming in the near future. If there is a feature that you would to see on the site, let us know by contacting our team at Support@OurTown.com.

Your OurTown Superhero,

Chris