In spring 2010, TownNews.com's new college program had an idea from one campus news organization, a few college customers—and a lot of hope.
Five years later, TownNews.com works with more than 100 college publications, including some of the top campus news outlets in the country.
It's been a fun ride.
In early 2010, TownNews.com had more than 20 years of experience providing technology solutions to news organizations, but little of that experience was with student media. Before the formalized college program in April 2010, our college partners were the Independent Alligator at University of Florida, the Coast Report at Orange Coast College and the Iowa State Daily.
The good folks at Iowa State reached out after seeing our new BLOX CMS at a state conference. They signed up, but they also saw the potential for BLOX CMS in college media—that a platform designed to work with publications from large metro dailies to small-town newspapers could work in newsrooms with high staff turnover.
We've come to describe BLOX CMS as a system that will work for "Sept. 15/Dec. 15 journalism"—meaning it works when a college staff is at full strength early in a semester, and also when news breaks late in the year when a college newsroom is about to pack up for the holidays. BLOX CMS has a lot of flexibility when combined with the backup of strong customer support.
"We switched to TownNews.com in the summer of 2012, and couldn't be happier," said Michael Fribush, general manager of The Diamondback at the University of Maryland. "The transition went seamlessly, and the support staff has been very responsive when we have needed them. I recommend TownNews.com very highly."
TownNews.com's strong customer support and training infrastructure have been keys to our success in student media. The college program helped inspire new ways to keep TownNews.com customers up to speed on BLOX CMS, with, among other things, the launching of our Quick Start Guides in summer 2013.
Having BLOX CMS in a college setting has also helped student journalists as they prepare for the "real world." Last summer, four of the five interns at the Tulsa World (Oklahoma) arrived armed with knowledge of BLOX CMS, as they had used it in their college newsrooms.
"Having our interns familiar with TownNews.com and BLOX CMS is a tremendous advantage for us," Susan Ellerbach, managing editor of the Tulsa World, said last summer.
In 2015, TownNews.com made another big step forward technologically with our new Flex Templates. The College Heights Herald at Western Kentucky was one of the first sites to launch with those templates—and several more college publications are on track to launch similar sites this year.
"WKU and the College Heights Herald have been partners with TownNews.com almost since the very beginning of the college program, and we've been very happy," said Chuck Clark, director of student publications at WKU. "TownNews.com brought the Herald a stable and reliable platform that let the students concentrate on their journalism and still have a sharp website with WKUHerald.com."
"We've also enjoyed being on the leading edge of the new Flex template, which lets the Herald look great on whatever digital device our audience wants to use."
TownNews.com is set to launch more features in 2015, and we're pleased to include our college customers in the discussions as we develop those features. The college program is now a big part of TownNews.com—and we think it will remain that way for years to come.
