Publishing

User Interface

The administrative area for CP5 is designed to be more accessible for the newsroom staff. The User Interface [UI] is much different from previous versions of the software, but enables users to work in multiple areas of the site at once. Ultimately, this flexibility on top of a basic work-flow affords reporters and editors to present rich content with multi-media features without writing a single line of code.

Photographers, Reporters and Editors

You want fast and easy, you have it.

We have made efforts to the software so it is easy to understand and you can take the same approach to the online edition as you do for the print edition of your paper.

With ‘Drag and Drop’ tools you can…

  • layout the front page and each section page differently
  • create special sections with breakout designs
  • feature multi-media content in various display modules.

We have also aimed to make the work-flow from print to online much easier. In CP 5.0, there is an InDesign xml upload utility that drastically speeds up the uploading process – you can upload an entire issue in matter of minutes. Download our xml template and follow the instructions to export your stories. See the support tab for documentation.

Webmasters can also focus on special sections much more easily – allowing each section its own individual layout that can be dynamic from day-to-day.

And… with all the extra time, editors can focus attention on tagging articles with keywords. This functionality opens tons of opportunities to keep readers on your site by featuring related content. Also, tagging your media (including photos, video and audio) and stories will ensure richer search results for your readers.

Webmasters and Online Editors

Tired of uploading 30 stories every night after the issue has gone to the publisher?

With the ease of use and improved training documentation, you can focus on layout and web exclusives for the online edition of your paper. This freedom from the cut/paste routine and being everyone’s upload monkey will allow you to focus your talents on the extra components to your site.

CP 5.0 ensures that you will have the time to turn your online publication into its own entity, separate from your print edition – with time to focus on fresh content. The new platform allows more easier tools for including multi-media features such as Soundslides.

And if you are looking to take it to a whole other level, the CP5 system is still setup for custom built applications to layer on top. Even though the CMS is structured in such a way where no code knowledge is required, you can still setup database, develop a mash-up and dump that code into an html module and let it run on top of the site.

This platform is flexible enough for editors and writers to update the content and sophisticated enough for uber-customization.

Sales Staff and Business Managers

Question: How do you monetize this channel?

Answer: Know what the product is.

Online Advertising is not easy to wrap your head around. However, you are serious about making a go out of selling the online edition; you have to make a commitment in your rate card to billing by the CPM model versus the ‘flat rate’.

Example:

Advertiser X purchases the buy for $100 to have his banner up for a week. It is a slow news week. Then Advertiser Y purchases the same buy for the next week. Your site is picked up on Drudge receives monster traffic. The result is that Advertisers X and Y paid same amount, but clearly Advertiser Y made out since triple the amount of people saw their ad.

The solution is to charge by the impression (every time the ad is shown). There are very sophisticated tools to do this effectively and fortunately, College Media Network partnered with a leading solution for online ad delivery.

We are proud to offer the benefits of our new partnership with Atlas. The instruments in your new dashboard will allow you to deploy ads exactly when and how you want. Managers can track campaigns up-to-the-minute, as well as view past, present and future campaigns in an easily sortable tables.

With Atlas’ support, you are able to learn how the industry sells inventory and see approximate CPMs based on how you are selling and pricing your inventory. These tools will help you assess your performance, take in seasonal factors and give you a forecast of your available inventory – and take into account impressions that you have already promised existing customers.

Classifieds online are a much more difficult and competitive landscape to navigate. However, College Media Network partnered with a leading solution in this market to serve the newspapers who don’t already have an answer.

CampusAve is designed to automate the work flow between online and print classifieds, eliminating the existing and tedious “copy/paste” routine. Upload your offline classifieds with the same deployment flexibility as always, but additionally receive a daily file from CampusAve, taken through your online portal for print classifieds listings

Being that CampusAve works on the network model like College Media Network, it will provide you with exposure to more customers. The online transactions on a secure server are no longer a barrier to potential clients and the system reliably issues a check on a monthly basis.

The bottom line though:

Whatever classifieds solution you use, CP5 can support it.