Thanks for your feedback: here’s how to make your NEast Philly experience better

We’re continuing to review the results of a survey we asked you to take awhile back, which included questions about how you get your news and what you think of NEast Philly.

In response to the survey, we’re addressing issues one at a time to help make your Northeast Philadelphia news experience the most efficient it can be. Now that you know how to contact us and submit things, let’s talk about how you read NEast Philly.

We’ve got a couple hundred subscribers who, rather than come directly to the site multiple times a day, get their NEast Philly news through feeds, or via e-mail. You can do that, too!

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE

Subscriptions are free, of course, and work in different ways.

If you’re using a feed catcher like Google Reader, you can subscribe via RSS by clicking the orange button on the top, right-hand side of the site (or using the link in this sentence). This will allow to access NEast Philly news from whatever feed serivce you’re using. The feed will update every time there is a new headline, but you can look at the feed whenever you want and get all the headlines, rather than checking the site throughout the day.

If you want to do even less work, subscribe via e-mail by clicking the blue button on the top, right-hand side of the site (or using the link in this sentence). Doing so will send a once-daily e-mail to your inbox with all the day’s NEast Philly headlines. Around midnight, you’ll get the full list of that day’s news delivered straight to your e-mail. Just remember to verify your subscription; simply click the link that’s sent to you via e-mail (check your spam folder if you can’t find it), and you’ll begin receiving the daily updates. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Those who attend their local civic meetings can also sign up to receive an e-mail update about the next upcoming meeting.  You might get a flier in your door a week or two before the meeting, but we’ll send you a reminder a few days beforehand — with the updated agenda, if available. Next time you’re at your civic or town watch meeting, look for a NEast Philly editor to find out how to sign up for your neighborhood list.

NEast Philly has no intention of selling your e-mail addresses or stealing your personal information. We will not e-mail you aside from the updates you sign up for.

HOW TO SHARE

The value of online news is the ease of sharing. From one page, you can e-mail an article to a friend, tweet it out or share it on Facebook. To do all of these, simply scroll to the bottom of the story you’re reading and click the appropriate button. You won’t have to copy a link or try to remember the name of the article when you want to tell a friend. Everything can be shared with just a click.

HOW TO INTERACT

We like to give you the news, but we also want to hear from you about it. You can give your opinion in many ways:

• Comment on a story (make sure you adhere to our policy)
• Join the conversation on Facebook
• Tweet us (remember to use #nephilly)
• Share your photos with us on Facebook

BUT WE CAN’T DO IT ALL FOR YOU

Need more information about an event or story? Often, we’ll include a link, e-mail address or phone number in an article or a Facebook status that directs you to more information. We do this for two reasons:

1. Information overload is counterproductive. At some point, people stop reading, so if we include too much information, readers may skim through it. We’ll give you the basics and link to the rest of the info.

2. Someone else might have better information. When possible, we’ll connect you with the direct source of the information you want. We do this when details change (the number of tickets available for an event, for example) so that readers can save that person’s contact information rather than have to come back and search for an update in our article.

If you’re not using some of the tools mentioned above, give them a try. And if you’re having trouble using them, let us know. Getting your local news should be easy.