FAQ: Submitting News, Press releases and calendar listings

Thank-you for considering us to distribute your information to the world! We take our job very seriously, and wanted to give you a few tips, tricks and even warnings when submitting to us. In this FAQ, no request requires extensive technical knowledge, but if you can hold up your end, your submission will not only get posted quicker – but look great as well!

Topics: In General Recommended File Formats Calendar Specific

In General

1. Embargoed Releases: We will respect your request to embargo your release until a specified date and PST time.
2. Posting notifications: I apologize, but the volume of postings that we now process it is impossible for us to notify you when we have posted your release. That said, a great way to track everything we post is to follow us on our twitter sites.
3. Special Placements: All of our sites are categorized to help our readers find exactly what they are interested in. There may be times that we mess up and place your release in an inappropriate category, but those cases are far and few between. That said, if you feel we have mis-categorized your release, just let us know and we will be glad to review your release and make any changes we feel appropriate.
4. Cross Posting & multiple category posting: There are times when your news is appropriate for more than just the site you submitted to and we reserve the right to cross post it to one of our other sites. The same may be true for multiple categories within a single site – for example….a release concerning a concert in New York City, is appropriate for both our entertainment categories, our New York City category AND a posting to the SinCity-247 Entertainment Calendar. All cross posting and multiple category postings are at the decisions will be made at the sole discretion of the editors of the particular site.
5. Copyright Notices: By submitting your release to us for posting, we must trust, that you or your client owns any and all copyrights & trade marks or have permission to utilize them, AND of course, gives us permission to post the submission whole or in part.
6. Fact Checking: We take no responsibility for the accuracy of your release, and shall assume no responsibility for any and all liability amounting from those inaccuracy.
7. Please Active URLs only!We normally keep your post active for a minimum of 6 months – some longer! So please insure that the links you provide us are active – or – if deactivated, will be forwarded to a applicable page within your site.
   1. Please check your links before sending your releases to us – silly spelling errors plague us all, but a misplaced “.” or a space were an underscore should be breaks the link, and more importantly doesn’t allow your potential customer to get that all important additional information!
8. Social Media postings: We Tweet, post to Facebook, LinkedIn, etc…the vast majority of our posts. Here are a few suggestions to insure you get the best possible outcome from our postings.
   1. Twitter Specific: Include the appropriate hash tags – i.e. # (for search terms) or @ for a mention etc…
   2. ALL: We highly recommend utilizing a shortening service for your URL – most not only produce a much shorter lnk, but most allow you to track your clicks, and analyze your success!
   3. ALL, SOME, MAYBE NOTE: Some services won’t post a link in various shortening formats. Although we try to keep up with what they like and don’t like – we can’t be responsible for a shortened link that you supply being filtered out. At the moment, most of the social media sites accept bitly and that is our go to service to shorten URLs for all of our own postings. If you don’t have a bitly account, or would like additional information, simply click here

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File Formats:

(1) Logos:

We will utilize your logo on your submission as a link to the article or listing – and within the listing itself. I realize that concerns some companies, but, it gives our posting a bit more legitimacy than most other sites. If you traverse our sites, you’ll see the logos of something of the biggest companies in the world – so have no fear, we won’t do anything with it that you don’t tell us to do.

Please submit your logo in one of the following formats:

• Hi-res JPG (.jpg or .jpeg) minimum resolution 300 pixels/inch with a black background & white background
• Hi-res TIFF (.tif or .tiff) minimum resolution 300 pixels/inch with a black background & white background
• Hi-res PNG (.png) minimum resolution 300 pixels/inch with a transparent background. If possible, supply us the file with all of the layers intact so we can insure a proper presentation.

Why the black & white backgrounds? Well, our sites all utilize a black background, and posting your news with a white logo looks tacky! We will keep the white background version on file, for future use if/when we utilize a white background. Of course, if you only have a logo with a white background, please make sure it is in as high a resolution as possible in the recommended formats. We’ll do our best to edit the file, and rest assured we won’t use it if we don’t think it looks great on our site. BTW: Most of our sites when in beta utilize this white background – and so we will still be able to populate the beta site while were building it out.

(2) Text:

PDF files may make it easy to distribute your files, but, they don’t convert well to html. So, please submit your text to us in one of the following formats:

• Plain Text in the body of the email
• Microsoft Word as an attachment (.doc)
• NOTE: If you use the “Track Changes” option – make sure you send a final version! We don’t know what’s right or whats wrong, so we will have to ask you to send us the final version.
• RTF as an attachment (.rtf)
• ODF Text Document (.odt)
• OpenOffice 1.0 Text Document (.sxw)
• HTML (.html)
  • NOTE: When submitting HTML files, please make sure that you are not calling a .css file for formatting purposes. We won’t have it, and it will make life difficult

Tables:

There is no single best solution for submitting tables within your release – but there are a few don’ts!

• Don’t use tabs in a word or text document, as they don’t translate well. Better to embed a spread sheet file like Excel (.xls) or an ODF Spreadsheet (.ods)
• Don’t send us a low res graphic of the table! Using graphics is a great solution – but please send us this graphic in the formats requested below. The best solution here in a PNG (.png) with a transparent background, and layers intact so we may “colorize” the text, lines etc…)

Links & Social Media:

• Of course, we want to insure that our readers can find more information about your widget – so please make sure that we have an active URL to link to. We do not use frames or any other “tricks” and your URL will open in it’s own window.
• Have Social Media links? Who doesn’t Please send them along, and we will be more than happy to add these links to your posting. But please format the links within the body of your text in a human readable format – For example: Follow us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/sincity-247465) This allows us to quickly make the link without having to visit your actual page etc..

(3) Widget Photos, Graphics etc…

Please remember that our sites utilize a black background, and so if you are sending us a widget shot or graphic with a white background – we are going to have to edit the file to give the best presentation of your product to our readers! So please send the files to us in one of the following formats!

• Hi-res JPG (.jpg or .jpeg) minimum resolution 300 pixels/inch with a black background or white background.
• Hi-res TIFF (.tif or .tiff) minimum resolution 300 pixels/inch with a black background or white background.
• Hi-res PNG (.png) minimum resolution 300 pixels/inch with a transparent background. If possible, supply us the file with all of the layers intact so we can insure a proper presentation.

(4) Photos, beauty shots etc…

Although our black background doesn’t interfere with your photo presentation like it would graphics or logos – it does have a tendency to make otherwise acceptable postings on a white background look dull and lifeless. So please send us your photos in one of the following formats:

• Hi-res JPG (.jpg or .jpeg) minimum resolution of 300 pixels/inch, minimum size of 1024×768
• Hi-res TIFF (.tif or .tiff) minimum resolution of 300 pixels/inch, minimum size of 1024×768

NOTE: You do not need to ask us for permission to send us your photos, or anything else we may need to give the best presentation of your product to our readers. If it is attached to your email, we will in all likelihood utilize it – however, if we have to go get it from somewhere, well, you’ll just have to take your chances that we have the time.

(5) Video’s, Presentation files etc…

• Our readers really appreciate video files, and depending upon the subject presentation files. We are more than happy to embed these files from your site, YouTube, or most other video social media sites, but due to the volume of video requests, we simply cannot stream them from our servers.
• In addition, since we like to keep your posting live for at least a year, there is no way we could store or afford that many terabytes to do so.

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Calendar Listings Specific:

Although our calendar is still in Beta, our readers are raving about it! Here are few tips to insure you get the best possible exposure for your event!

• Our event listings are quite extensive, so we require you to supply us with the information to properly populate it! Nothing out of the ordinary mind you, actually nothing more than a good ad would contain. So here is a list of fields that we need the information for:
  • Standard Information:
    • Title of Event
    • Description of event (please submit this description using the format recommendations above.)
    • Event Date
    • Event Start Time
    • End Time if applicable
    • In lieu of Start & End Times, you can state that he event is an “All Day Event” or “TBA”
  • Is this a reoccurring event?If so, please also supply the following information:
    • Daily
      • Every Day
      • Every X number of days
    • Weekly (specify Day or days of the week of the week)
    • Monthly: Choice of…
      • Day of the month, every X month(s)
      • On the (First, Second, Third, Fourth, Last) (Day of the Week) of every (x) month(s)
    • End Date – NOTE: This is extremely important for not only supplying the proper information to our readers – your attendee’s, but for general housekeeping as well. This date will delete your listing from our database insuring only the most up to date listings are available. If not supplied, we will assume that it does not end until the end of this calender year. That can be way to long, or way to short depending upon your circumstances.
  • The Recommended SinCity-247 Category: Many event organizers prefer one nomenclature over another. Some prefer for example Trade Show others Expo; some entertainment organizers will prefer DJ over simply Nightlife, or visa-verse! The choice really is yours and we think we have covered all the bases. Just remember, your recommendation should reflect what your attendee will be interested in, and may be searching for. You’ll find the most recent category listing below!
  • The following Location information is required:
    • Location:
    • Name
    • Address
    • City,St. Zip Code
  • If you want your attendee’s to contact the event coordinators directly, please supply the following information:
    • Event Contact info (if applicable)
    • Name
    • Email Address
    • Phone Number
    • Web site

  • Category Listing	Accurate as of June 11, 2011
    Adult OnlyAll Business *COC Event Educational Networking Event Political Events Trade Show Around the World Chicago IL Dallas Tx London England Los Angeles New York City Paris, France SoCal Tokyo, Japan Arts, Museums, Exhibitions At the Movies Attractions Family Fun Thrills & Chills Tours	AuctionsBroadcast / CableCirque du Soleil Dinning Expo Festivals / Fairs Gaming Poker Tournaments Promotions Slot Tournaments In Concert In the Great Out Doors LGBT Lounge Acts Nightlife DJ Hosted Party Karaoke Open Mic Showcase The Party Scene	Non-Profit FundraiserShows Comedy Headliners Hypnosis, Mind Reading & Psychics Impressionists Magic Production Shows Tribute Shows Special Events Sporting Events Worship
    * Chamber of Commerce

If you can’t find an appropriate category, please feel free to recommend one.

Well that should cover the issues from our side, if you have any questions, special requests etc…just give us a call at (702) 914.9978.

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