I needed to create a website that would look and act like a newspaper for communities and advertisers that had never experienced a local web only newspaper. It needed to look "old-timey" but still contain the functions and flexibility of a sophisticated site. (The compliments continue to pour in about the look of the site.) It needed to be attractive, user friendly, with lots of ad space, and enough space for articles, archives and add-ons so that readers and advertisers would feel that they were experiencing something special in their communities. Those add-ons include weather, Facebook syncs for posts, a huge business directory, a calendar, among others. I was able to change the theme enough in the development stage to get what I needed to launch. But then in the second and third years have relied on help from the Solostream staff, in particular Alistair. He was able to set up two ad stacks that rotate upon refresh and do other behind-the-scenes work for us since our heads are wrapped around the front-end work at this point. Thanks to a solidly attractive theme, ease of use on the administration end and Solostream staff support, we have entered our fourth year with a highly readable site that continues to grow in readership and advertising every month.
Cynthia Prairie
