Today, we're happy to announce a significantly updated "Daily
Newswire" as well as brand new feature, which we're calling the "Daily
Fanwire".
The Newswire and Fanwire will now be updated around the clock, have free RSS
feeds available, and also allow fans to comment on stories.
Both features are 100% free for all Browns fans and will remain
censorship-free. Unlike several corporate competitors who have started similar
features, the OBR will not censor links to discourage competition. We will
continue to link to every story we feel will be of interest to Browns fans,
regardless of the source. We don't think that you are noobs who can be fooled,
or who don't know how to surf the internet yourself.
You can help us maintain the Newswire and Fanwire as free features of the OBR
by telling Browns fans who may have been sucked in by imitators about these
pages, or by volunteering to help keep the wires up-to-date throughout the day.
If you want to participate, feel free to
contact us.
We also encourage fans to comment on the articles in the newswire as a way of
providing feedback to the writers and editors of the sites which produce them.
The OBR is read daily by nearly every Browns writer and on-air personality, as
well as by the front-office staff of the Browns. This new feature can be a
soapbox within earshot of shakers and movers in the Browns community, but only
if fans want to use it.
There's also a handy list of links on the right-hand side of the newswire and
fanwire so that you can do your own self-serve surfing. Enjoy, and let us know
if you can suggest more links or other places to get Browns news.
Here's more about the new features:
Around-The-Clock Updates
By changing our technology to use blogging tools rather than a proprietary
system, we've made it easy for OBR staff and fans to update the wires from any
page where they land. Reducing the hassle involved allows us to update the wire
whenever we see anything interesting.
Comments and Ratings
Browns fans can now rate and comment on
newswire and
fanwire articles simply by clicking the "Comments" link at the bottom of the
thread. This is one of those things that requires a little time of turn into a
cool interactive feature, so please participate so we can make this something
that everyone in the community of fans can enjoy. We are looking at adding "Digg"-like
features in the near future as well.
Comments can be left anonymously, but if you want to log in to the Muni Lot,
simply make sure that you are logged in on the OBR site and
CLICK HERE.
When you click the button on the linked page, a "cookie" will be set up that
logs you in automatically to the Muni Lot using the same User ID and password as
you use on the OBR and our forums.
RSS Feeds
Like our website itself, the
newswire and fanwire both have RSS feeds available so that you don't necessarily
need to visit the OBR web page throughout the day to get new information.
Because fans can see new stories without visiting the OBR itself, you'll often
see OBR stories included in the newswire.
About the Newswire
Ever since this site showed up, calling itself "BrownsTNG", back in 1999, we've
been linking Browns news stories we found around the internet, so that fans
could get a heaping plate of new info every single day. Somewhere in the first
year of the site, we turned that into something that we call the "Daily
Newswire".
Other than a handful of (mostly) unavoidable situations, the newswire has
been updated faithfully each day for the past seven years.
BBack when we started, the newswire was a hand-crafted page, maintained by
volunteers like GregTNG, DK, and TheBrownsFan. Around 2003, we automated
news-gathering by using a bunch of "robots" we built to monitor websites around
the clock. In 2006, the newswire was moved to the
Muni Lot area of the OBR.