If you’re a regular reader of Update online, you may have already noticed this; if not, you will tomorrow. Yep, we’re changing things once again here at the ‘ol Mess.

I was charged with what many in the office probably thought was a simple task: get the printed Update ads online… NOW! But it didn’t prove to be that easy. Sure, I could have scheduled them all via my online ad manager software, but the problem there is that they would get scheduled by day: If the ad was scheduled for Tuesday, on Tuesday the correct ad would show up. But let’s say it’s Thursday, and you’ve missed a couple of days and decide to go back and read Tuesday’s Update. What ads would you see? Thursday’s. Because, after all, it IS Thursday, not Tuesday.

Along comes a fellow by the name of “binnyva” to the rescue with his WordPress plugin Article Template. Sure, it’s got it’s bugs (I won’t bore you with the gory details, but hit me up if you want them), but it’s incredibly easy to use, and even the reporters who post breaking news, bleary-eyed in the middle of the night from their iPhones or iPads at the scene of an accident or house fire, can simply click a template style which injects the correctly pre-scheduled ads into their posts. All we have to do weekly is get a schedule for the ads, modify the templates for the week, and we’re gold.

To track the ad impressions/clicks, we have them all routed through wcmess.com before they reach their ultimate destinations, be it their websites, their Facebook pages, a static Update ad, or any other place they desire.

Thanks, Binnyva!

(Oh, and contact ads@wcmessenger.com to get your business placed on the waiting list for the online Update…)