AmericanTowns.com Blog

New look, More Content from AmericanTowns!

All of us here at AmericanTowns feel sort of like proud, new parents--we just completed a fresh, new design and almost want to hand out cigars!  The team spent months listening to our users to discover what would make the site easier, more informative and useful.  Some of the stuff we’ve added included a way to quickly grab the info you use most every day – weather, maps, directions and the like.  Looking for something fun to do?  We’ve built an amazing database of local events, family activities, and regional festivals.  There’s also a whole bunch of ways to make your day run more smoothly – from finding the perfect pizza restaurant for dinner to getting tips for how you can do your part to help the environment.  We still have more planned – and we want to hear from you as we go forward.  So feel free to check in and tell us your opinions and ideas. 

Jim Maglione
Co-President, Community

To AmericanTowns.com Visitors and Friends

We are very proud to share some exciting news with you.  AmericanTowns has established a relationship with Idearc Media Corp., the NYSE-listed publisher of the Verizon Yellow Pages and home to Superpages.com.  We want to explain what this means to you and the communities we serve.

AmericanTowns.com is working hard to make its “community web space” platform one that you can use as you like, when you like, and for whatever you like, to satisfy your interests.  We remain firmly committed to our mission to connect you and members of your community through the power of the Internet.

Idearc is making a $3.3 million investment in AmericanTowns.  We will use these funds to provide you with more community event listings, more useful resources and additional tools to help you and your community share information more easily, in a greater variety of formats (text, video, etc.). And, while we strive to make sure every AmericanTowns site is useful from day 1, we want you to feel empowered to correct, add to or even direct key content of this shared web space.

For Idearc, their customers will benefit from accessing information from our extensive community events database, which is the largest in the nation, and from our other resources. This means the events and initiatives you promote here will have still broader audience.  We also are expanding distribution of information on AmericanTowns through Google Local and other internet channels.  So, for whatever is important to you, get the word out!

We also announced today our plans to provide such a community webspace for each of the 22,000 towns in America over the next several months.  This means you’ll soon have information on what’s happening in every town in America – all accessible at AmericanTowns.com.   With a click of the mouse, you can check upcoming events in your town or learn about towns you plan to visit.

And all the while we’ll be asking for feedback from you:  What do you like about the site? What could we do better? What’s local to your community that you think we should add? What new applications or tools would you like to have?

We are building AmericanTowns.com to be your space – it is an “open” space – that allows you to tell us what you want, or to make the changes/additions yourself.  Your involvement in shaping the future of AmericanTowns.com will truly make it your community’s “virtual town square”.  We want AmericanTowns.com to evolve and grow naturally according to your needs, interests and feedback.

So, please share your comments and join us in celebrating today’s exciting news!

Sincerely,

Jim Maglione                                    Ed Panian
Co-President of Community        Co-President of Technology

…And the entire team at AmericanTowns.com

Real Estate Directory Launches on AmericanTowns

Here at AmericanTowns we love making local connections.  That’s why we’ve been working so hard on our new Real Estate Listings feature.  It’s a great new way for realtors to connect with potential home buyers and sellers at that critical time, the beginning of their internet search.

When potential clients come to AmericanTowns looking for information about their target town, they find the Americantowns Real Estate Listings, which provides the name and telephone number of real estate professionals in a town.  To stand out from the pack, agents can easily upgrade their basic listing to become a featured agent, so buyers and sellers can get all the information they need to connect and get started right away.

As a featured real estate professional, you get twice the benefits of regular advertising- a highly targeted audience of potential clients and the ability to show yourself as an active participant in the community.

We’ve designed it to be really simple.   If you already have a basic listing included in the directory, just search for your name, then click “Upgrade.” You’ll be able to start taking advantage of our full range of online marketing tools right away.

Hope you like our new feature and that it helps make your busy life a whole lot easier.

AmericanTowns Launches Online Fundraising Tool For Community Organizations

Raising money for a favorite charity used to be everyone’s least favorite chore. It involved so much time, trouble and follow-up it was hard to get volunteers to take on the job. But now, with our new secure Online Donation Tool, fundraising is so incredibly easy. All you have to do is direct donors to your organization's page on AmericanTowns, where they’ll find easy instructions for donating money securely via Pay Pal. Donors fill in their donation amount and click a button. It really is that simple.

You can use our Online Donation tool to raise funds for a new playground or new team uniforms, for a capital campaign or your favorite charity. You can even use it to handle annual registration or membership fees. When you sign up your club or organization on Americantowns, simply activate the Online Donation tool and you’re in business. Thanks to our new Online Donation feature , fundraising may just become everyone’s new favorite job.

AmericanTowns launches new Press Release Distribution Tool

Have you ever wished you could just press a button and send out a press release to every media outlet you needed to get the word out to? Well, that day has come. Now, on Americantowns to distribute a press release just click on the "Post your press releases" link, type in your info, press “Create A Press Release” and you’re done. Not only will your release immediately appear on your community site, but we'll also submit it to the local media outlets you choose, via email, within an approximate twenty mile radius (larger papers have a larger radius).

It’s an incredibly simple, reliable way for local clubs and organizations to get the word out.. Of course, public relations people all over the country won’t want anyone to know that we’ve made their job so much easier. We’ll just keep it our little secret.