Frequently Asked Questions

Prospective Users

Who?

Who can use OneSpot?

OneSpot’s Solutions can be used by any publisher, from the large traditional publisher to the individual mommy bloggers, and everything in between. OneSpot helps anyone who has a need for third party content, but prefers only the best, targeted content for their readers.

Does it matter if I’m a small publisher?

Small publishers may be most in need of a solution like OneSpot. It can be really hard to find complementary content for your site, particularly if you are a one-person shop or a small handful of content creators working hard to put out a site. OneSpot can become that extra editorial staff member you have needed to make your site the best it can possibly be.

Is it available to large media publishers also?

OneSpot first launched with large media publishers, and continues to serve that market. The Wall Street Journal Law Section tested our solution and decided to expand OneSpot to the Technology, Health, Politics, and Business sections. Other large media publishers using OneSpot include SF Gate and Chron.com.

I’m not technical. How complex is OneSpot to use?

OneSpot’s Editor Dashboard makes it easy for even the most non-technical person to publish the best aggregated content to your site. If you can handle an online email client, like Gmail or Hotmail, you can operate the Editor Dashboard.

Can OneSpot find the right content for my audience?

OneSpot uses a linking and scoring system to find the best aggregated content for your site, not a keyword search. So if you have a site about Politics in New York, OneSpot will help you find content only about Politics in New York. In addition to the network of stories, OneSpot also offers sophisticated filters and moderation to ensure your readers are receiving only the best content you curate.

What?

What is Publishing as a Service™?

OneSpot helps you find the good stuff! Through OneSpot’s proprietary Web crawler and patent-pending content scoring approach, OneSpot finds top stories by story linking patterns, not just keywords. Publishing as a Service™ helps to break the bottleneck of publishing high volumes of content, automatically reveals the best targeted content for your audience, easily integrates across your online properties, improves your profile in your respective community, and helps to make your site the best it can possibly be.

What is the value of leveraging third party content on my site?

If you have one or two posts a day on your site, then each of your readers will hit your site one or two times per day. If you have regularly updated complementary content with discussion pages and further reading, each reader has the potential to hit your site multiple times a day viewing multiple pages while on your site. Throw in advertising, and you get the idea.

OneSpot can also help your newsletters, particularly if you are an online retailer. By adding the best aggregated content in your newsletters, you are telling your customers that you not only have the best products and promotions for your retail area, but that you also care about the latest news and information about that area. For example, if you sell DVR products, you might already have a newsletter with new products and promotions for the store. Supplement that with a newsletter with valuable information about DVRs, tips and tricks for maximizing DVR use, and stories about new distribution methods for content on DVRs, and suddenly you are not just an online retailer, but the authoritative source for DVRs. So when customers want to buy DVR products and accessories, you are the trusted source they turn to first.

What do other publishers think of me using their content on my site?

Marc Frons, the NYTimes’ CTO for Digital Operations, said it best: “The days when content sites were afraid to link to other sites are over.” Even major publishers are finding it difficult to create content to meet demand. By linking to other content, neither party is giving up anything; in fact, it is beneficial for both the content creator and you the publisher to put that content on your site. The content creator gets their story seen by more readers by having it linked to on other sites. You the publisher get complementary content for your readers and search engine traffic because of that story. With OneSpot, you are not simply copying the story either; the story appears as a title and summary giving full credit to the author and linking out to the original content creator for the full story. So the publisher still gets traffic to their site; you are simply the first stop, the place, for your subject matter.

What is the value of third party content to my audience?

If you are a one-person shop, how many posts per day can you reasonably manage? One… two… maybe three tops? With this format, your audience is trained to visit your site once per day (or even once per week) to read content. With OneSpot aggregated content, how many stories can be on your site per day? Ten… twenty… fifty? This would train your readers to check in often for the latest updates, hitting your site multiple times per day. Third-party content revealed through OneSpot, curated by you, supplements your own created content, providing your readers with as much of the best, targeted information to keep them interested and keep them coming back.

What would change about my normal publishing process if I used OneSpot?

OneSpot can impact your editorial process as much or as little as you wish. If you want complete control over the content that is published to your OneSpot widgets, headlines pages, and newsletters, you can set your publication mode to be moderated under Publication Settings. In this mode, no new content is published to your OneSpot publications without your approval and editorial control. Of course, OneSpot could also not impact your publishing process at all beyond the initial setup. By setting your publication in continuous mode, your OneSpot publications will be updated automatically without any work on your part. With OneSpot, you can control your publication through the Editor Dashboard every day or only at setup.

What happens when a reader clicks on OneSpot content?

Depending on how you set up your account, your readers will either be taken directly to the original story or to a discussion page with a summary, related stories, and commenting and rating options. From the discussion page, your readers can go to the original story or find other OneSpot content to explore.

There are a lot of “related content” widgets. What is different about OneSpot?

Most “related content” widgets simply aggregate content. OneSpot aggregates, filters, and prioritizes content. So instead of just automatically showing the latest posts from a given keyword, OneSpot’s smart linking and scoring leads to the best targeted content presented for your audience. OneSpot also allows for complete customization of story presentation through the easy to use Editor Dashboard. So with OneSpot, it’s easy to aggregate the best Web content without losing editorial control.

What does it cost to use OneSpot on my site?

OneSpot customers pay a monthly subscription fee that is based on the number of different topic areas we publish for you. Small to midsize publishers can get started for as little as $149/month for a single topic area. Larger publishers that have more than 500,000 page views a month receive pricing that is based on the amount of set up, customization and content that they require. Sign up for a free trial, or contact us to learn more.

Can I tailor content to the things my readers are interested in?

With OneSpot’s unique linking system, your topics will automatically reveal the best relevant content for your readers. However, you can further tailor your publications by incorporating filters, moderating stories prior to publishing, editing the publication order, and adding your own spin with Editor Comments.

What if my readers are interested in more than one topic?

OneSpot makes it easy to add separate publications and topics to your site. Topics are subject matter groups and publications are the presentation of those topics. So if your readers are interested in cars, you could have a Topic for all cars and publications for Domestic and Foreign cars, allowing for separation of the subjects. Filtering out similar focus areas in your publications is easy and can be done from the Publication Settings within the Editor Dashboard. However, if your readers are interested in cars and knitting, you can create separate Topics for each respectively. Adding new topics to your account is easy and can be done from the Dashboard.

When?

When can I get OneSpot on my site?

For most publishers, OneSpot can be up and running within a matter of a couple of days, and most only require 1 hour of IT Time.

Where?

Where can I use OneSpot?

OneSpot can appear on your website as a widget, a headlines page, a discussion page, or as a newsletter. In addition, you can make the JavaScript code available for readers to post on their own site, leading more linking back to your site.

Why?

Why do I need OneSpot for my site?

If you are a publisher, large or small, in need of additional third-party content for your site and/or newsletters, you probably have been researching solutions to aggregate more content. OneSpot is one solution to this problem, offering an easy way to aggregate the best content without losing editorial control.

Why is it better than other solutions?

OneSpot uses a proprietary linking and scoring system to not only aggregate content, but also filter and prioritize the best content for your audience. OneSpot’s system is more sophisticated than keyword searches, ensuring your readers not only get the best content, but the most relevant content that will keep them coming back to you, the authoritative source on your topic.

Current Users

Troubleshooting

Looking for help in the Editor Dashboard application?

Visit our FAQs in Get Satisfaction, use the Orange Feedback Tab in the app, or Contact Us.