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 Digital Journal Introduces Email Alerts, New Look and Breaking News Feeds
Based on enormous amounts of user feedback, Digital Journal is proud to announce new features, including a comprehensive News Alerts, a manicured design for the front page, as well as an up-to-the-minute feed for breaking news around the world.
News Alerts & Daily Top News Summary
The first part of this feature roll-out includes the ability for anyone to have News Alerts sent to them by email. At the top of your page you will now see a link to  News Alerts.
Using Digital Journal's customized news alerts, readers are now able to receive email updates on subjects that interest them most. By specifying customized keywords, you will receive an email alert anytime an article that contains those keywords is published.
For example, you could create a news alert for "Paris" and receive updates on any travel articles that are published on the site. You can also exclude keywords, such as "Hilton", so your email updates do not include articles on "Paris Hilton." All alerts are totally customizable, so you can create an alert for your name, a company, a place or a word and receive updates as news breaks. You can also specify the frequency at which you receive alerts (hourly, daily, weekly or monthly).
Digital Journal news alerts do not require registration, so anyone can create a customized news alert. However, by being a registered user you are able to manage your alerts, modify keywords and change frequency (click on My Account and you will see a tab for "alerts.") Alerts can be cancelled at any time.
You can also create a news alert to give you the top headlines each day. Using Digital Journal's Daily Top News Summary, you will receive a synopsis of the top news in your email inbox daily, weekly or monthly (depending on what you select).
Digital Journal Partners with DPA
Digital Journal has partnered with DPA (Deutsche Press Agentur) to provide up-to-the-minute news content for the site. They are a news agency based out of Europe.
As a network of both professional and citizen journalists, Digital Journal wants to provide the most timely and comprehensive news coverage as possible for the benefit of our readership. Breaking news from DPA can be seen inside every category below the "Good Find" box.
It's important to note that news agencies (like DPA) and Digital Journal Staff are not paid from the Citizen Journalist moneypot.
New Look
Digital Journal loves to constantly evolve design, and this roll-out is intended to improve the reading experience, while at the same time add function.
The first major change you will notice is that categories are now listed across the top of the site rather than on the left-hand side. This move was made to better utilize space, and put more attention on the diversity of news available across the site.
We have added a darker background to the site to help put focus on the content, as well as give prominence to the News Alerts, My Account, Search, and earnings info on the top of the page.
And Citizen Journalists will also notice a new, cleaner layout for writing and editing articles. This change was made to make the page easier to navigate and to make functions more visible (for example, the image upload is now in the middle of the page rather than off to the right).
We thank everyone for all their feedback along the way, as we have received a great deal of input from Digital Journal's community and general readership. We look forward to more feedback as we work to constantly improve DigitalJounal.com.
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Good updates!
Alerts are definitely a nice addition, and I think this may help increase the readership at DJ.
As for the new look, it does seem more slick. Good choices, great work! :)
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I like the alerts, nice work.
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I think the look is much improved. It's easier on the eyes particularly the placement of the categories and the (larger) search bar.
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Before I saw this announcement I sent an email about the change in finding images for articles. The new process sucks big time, as I indicated. Before, it was possible to use the same keyword several times, just by clicking on it again. Now, you have to input the keyword (or words) every single time you want to bring up a new batch of images.
But the rest of the posting page design is much improved. I'd like to see the width of the text box increased, but that's not a big issue.
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@ unusualsuspect
Before I saw this announcement I sent an email about the change in finding images for articles. The new process sucks big time, as I indicated. Before, it was possible to use the same keyword several times, just by clicking on it again. Now, you have to input the keyword (or words) every single time you want to bring up a new batch of images.
But the rest of the posting page design is much improved. I'd like to see the width of the text box increased, but that's not a big issue.
Thanks for the feedback unusualsuspect. We are going to add a "search again" button back to the image search process so you do not have to type a keyword every time. -
I am also now experiencing problems uploading new images to articles. It keeps timing out.
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I like the new web design, good usability has a web 2.0 like feel. Thanks.
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Definitely a crisper look, and I like everything that I've seen so far! Good job!
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Unusual, Nathalie, the problems that you have brought up have been addressed.
Please let us know if there is anything else.
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I like the more professional feel of the design. Good job Alex!
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@ Alex Chumak
Unusual, Nathalie, the problems that you have brought up have been addressed.
Please let us know if there is anything else.
Thank you, it is finally working :) Cheers! -
Wholly hanna I love the new look. Seems crisper and oh so much clearer. Very nice Alex and the DJ gang :>)
Hopefully now I won't get the double pane anymore.... what a relief!!!
Cheers!
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Yeah, like the new space and the extra left margin. That'll help the text sit with the picture format, and clears the article space. That's sometimes a real nuisance on news sites, too much extra, and it's not what people are trying to look at.
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I love the new layout and the e-mail alerts option. Great job guys.
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The new layout looks nice indeed. I am very excited about the alerts option.
One questions: what is happening with "Subscribe me to this thread"? I noticed that I suddenly hardly get any anymore. Of course, it is possible that the spamfilters of my provider are taking them out?
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I have been noticing that the page is loading up a bit slower than it did before. On my highspeed connection that was nothing, but when I had to get on here from AOL it took me half an hour to read and respond to one story at times. Are you guys concerned that this will lessen traffic to the site?
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@ Bart B. Van BockstaeleOne questions: what is happening with "Subscribe me to this thread"? I noticed that I suddenly hardly get any anymore. Of course, it is possible that the spamfilters of my provider are taking them out?
There were a couple of people on a particular ISP that were having problems before. I haven't heard anyone else having difficulties. I seem to be getting them all. Is it something that started recently(friday) or has it been going on for a while now?
@ Samantha A. TorrenceAOL it took me half an hour to read and respond to one story at times. Are you guys concerned that this will lessen traffic to the site?
The only thing that was a little slower for first 2 days was the front page, but i have optimized some stuff so it actually loads at least as fast as it used to if not a little faster. AOL is not high-speed? Dial-up? -
@ Alex Chumak
The only thing that was a little slower for first 2 days was the front page, but i have optimized some stuff so it actually loads at least as fast as it used to if not a little faster. AOL is not high-speed? Dial-up?
Dial up on AOL tends to cache a lot. It's better to use an alernative web browswer such as firefox.
CSS design is one of the fastest ways to have a page load.
Alex you did a great job on this one. -
I have Road Runner and use Acoo browser and have no problems. The page does seem to be loading faster than before though.
Again...great job!
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It must have just been me.
Thanks for looking into it though.
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@ Alex ChumakThere were a couple of people on a particular ISP that were having problems before. I haven't heard anyone else having difficulties. I seem to be getting them all. Is it something that started recently(friday) or has it been going on for a while now?
It has been since a while. A few weeks. When something like this happens, I pay attention, but I keep quiet. As a programmer, I am well aware of the fact that a problem may be due to "something, somewhere", and I find it makes no sense to yell before a problem becomes more or less certainly not a "glitch".
Nevertheless, I can be reasonably certain that this is -for me- an ongoing issue.
For example, when I replied to this thread, I subscribed to it, as I always do when I reply. Since then, 5 replies have been added. I have received 2 (#18 and #20). Therefore, there are 3 I did not receive. My messages are being filtered by DomainDirect.
It is, obviously, not a matter of life and death in my case, but you never know. It just might be an indication of a real problem/issue/bug somewhere.
Thanks for looking into it, but don't lose your sleep over it. There are more important things in life than a few missing messages. Enjoying the last beautiful summer days in Toronto would be one of those! -
I have noticed a glitch. The top news button on the main page is stuck on September 7. No new stories from this weekend made it to that phase.
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@ momentsintime
I have noticed a glitch. The top news button on the main page is stuck on September 7. No new stories from this weekend made it to that phase.
I wondered why the main page has not changed since Sept. 7.
I just got back from a vacation last night. Since I did not have the use of my lap top one of the first things I did after getting home was to check out what was going on in DJland.
I did go to the library a few times and I did see this new announcement but haven't had time to check it out.
I am confident that the staff will get all the bugs worked out and that the new features will be a good improvement. -
Thanks momentsintime, i only read the latest i guess :) -
Alex is the layout optimazied for IE or all browsers?
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nevermind it's working now! you go Alex! :)
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Ughm... it is actually optimized for FireFox. If something wrong when you are in FF, then most likely the problem is not browser-related.
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Thanks for your feedback and that of everyone on the site with regards to DPA.
We have found a lot of DPA's news items to be useful during our test period with them -- they have provided a lot of European coverage that is scarce in North America, and some of their articles explore topics that are very newsworthy and engaging.
But based on recent changes, the growth of our Citizen Journalist community and valuable feedback from you and other Digital Journal members, we have decided to move forward without DPA. They offer a great service, but at this time we are going to focus all our efforts on you members and the editorial coverage provided by all Citizen Journalists which we greatly value and enjoy.
Thanks again for everyone's feedback.
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This is great, Chris! I have noticed that there have been a lot of new and excellent CJs that have come on board lately. Indeed, DJ has gotten to be something very awesome!
Thanks, Chris, on the update!
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Sounds good, Chris!
DPA is indeed good, but the risk is that it makes Digital Journal look like "any" other standardized news service, i.e. they offer not much of an incentive for people to come here.
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Good call.
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Nice! Thanks folks!
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Good news Chris and staff. :-)
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