FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact:
Jason Alexander, dotCal, Inc. 503.349-4711 or jason@dotCal.com
Portland, Ore. (Sept 30, 2010) – Newspapers looking to enhance communications with their customers and draw more readers to their advertisers are using a new Internet-based calendar communications network as a solution to event publishing and information sharing. dotCal.com (dotCal) is working with many community newspapers to enhance marketing and communication strategies for local meetings, restaurant openings, special events, and other time-sensitive information. Community newspapers currently subscribing to dotCal include:
• Beaverton Valley Times
• Boom! Boomers & beyond
• Clackamas Review
• Estacada News
• News Times
• The Outlook Online
• Lake Oswego Review
• Oregon City News
• Regal Courier
• Sandy Post
• Sherwood Gazette
• South County Spotlight
• The Bee
• The SW Connection
• The Times Tigard/Tualatin
• West Linn Tidings
The dotCal platform allows the community newspapers to communicate directly with their readers and further involve them in their community’s local events and happenings,” said Alvaro Fontan Web Systems Manager at Pamplin Media. “Very easy to update and manage, the program is a hassle-free investment that helps us to draw in more visitors to our sites and enhances our reader’s relationship with us.”
In addition to using the online calendar network to post and share event information, the community newspapers are using dotCal as a gateway to posting information on sites like Twitter and Facebook. From the dotCal event calendars from each newspaper’s site, readers can self publish interesting information onto their favorite social networking sites, or simply send those events to friends, in just one click.
“We’re finding more and more community newspapers are using the dotCal platform to post events to their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts without having to log in to each individual site, saving them time and resources,” said CEO and founder Danton Mendell. “It’s social media, made easy.”
Like RSS for Calendars
Similar to RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and other publishing programs, dotCal enables newspapers, businesses, nonprofits and individuals to share and publish a variety of time-relevant information that can be accessed across numerous online calendar platforms. Because dotCal is standards based, it is compatible with most calendar programs, including Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Apple iCal, Yahoo! Calendar and Mozilla Thunderbird, as well as many mobile phone calendars, including the iPhone.
To date, more than 120 businesses are using dotCal to manage and communicate event and other time-centric information directly to their customers.
About dotCal
dotCal is an Internet technology company founded by Danton Mendell, the founder of 1-800-Support and Pacific Dataware Inc. An Internet marketing service, dotCal enables businesses to communicate event information across a variety of business and consumer calendar programs, similar to e-mail and RSS. In addition to enabling businesses to share calendar events and other information directly with customers and their favorite social networks, dotCal allows individual users to connect with friends and family.
About CalConnect
dotCal is a member of CalConnect, a calendar and scheduling consortium based in Northern California. dotCal and CalConnect are focused on the exchange of calendar and scheduling information across various programs, platforms and technologies. Active dotCal CalConnect partners include Apple, Google, Carnegie Mellon, Eventful, IBM, Dartmouth, Microsoft, Nokia, Mozilla, NASA, Oracle, RPI, and Yahoo!.
About Pamplin Media Group
The Pamplin Media Group (PMG) is a media conglomerate owned by Robert B. Pamplin, Jr. and operating primarily in the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. The Portland Tribune newspaper, founded by Pamplin in 2001, is the largest newspaper in the group, and KPAM is the largest radio station. PMG also includes a group of newspapers formerly known as community newspapers, Incorporated, serving the Portland area. Most of them are published once a week.
For more information or to start using dotCal, please visit dotCal.com or call (888) 545-7846.