Every day at LifeSiteNews big changes are in the works, and I list some of them below.
It isn’t that we love change for its own sake. It’s just that we are always looking for new, and better, ways to carry out our mission of spreading the truth about life and family.
Especially with the Internet, if a web service isn’t constantly moving forward, it quickly sinks down and out.
The fact is, our website and reports need to be the best because of the gravity of the issues involved. Of course, we’re already ranked the #1 most popular pro-life website on the entire internet by the web-ranking service Alexa.com. But that isn’t good enough!
Our ultimate purpose is to counter the mainstream media outlets, which often distort, mislead, and outright lie when it comes to life and family issues. That goal might sound crazy, especially when you consider they have the support of the powerful, the famous and the wealthy, with budgets that often run into the hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars every year!
How can we compete with that? Well, we don’t need anywhere near as much as they do because we have something more powerful than wealth – TRUTH! And yet, even though everything we do at LifeSiteNews is done on a shoe string budget, we still rely on you to provide the little we need to run this professional news agency.
Please make a contribution to our Christmas Campaign, so that we can continue to be a thorn in the side of the anti-life and anti-family forces.
(Click here to donate today)
Of course, part of being the best is staying on top of all the latest developments in web technology. This might not be the most glamorous aspect of our work, but it is absolutely crucial.
The Internet is our vehicle: it’s how we bypass all the usual media and get directly to the people. And thanks to our competent and devoted team, millions of people (over 3.5 million in the past year) come to our website every year – and the numbers are climbing higher every day!
Right now we have a few projects that were recently completed, or will be completed by the end of this year. Here is a rough idea of some of the things we’ve cooked up, and a few of the items that you can look forward to in the future:
1) A new commenting system – Our old commenting system was clunky and hard to use. A lot of readers expressed frustration that it was difficult to register and sign in. But with our new, far more advanced system, readers can quickly and easily login to comment using their Facebook, Twitter, Google and Yahoo profiles.
The system also allows for comment “flagging,” “replying” to comments, “liking” comments, and other things besides. All of which ensures that LSN’s commenting feature helps foster a thoughtful and interesting exchange of ideas on our website, helping create a real global community of pro-life and pro-family advocates.
2) Mobile website – Everyone knows that “smart phones” and mobile devices are the way of the future. At LifeSiteNews we are seeing more and more people logging in to our site from their iphones, ipads, blackberries and Androids.
Right now, however, it is difficult for these users to read our stories, because the website isn’t formatted for their tiny screens. That will soon change. By the end of the year we hope to launch a cutting edge and attractive mobile site to cater to the needs of our increasing mobile readership.
3) Send-to-friend tool – We know that a lot of our readers are so devoted to LifeSiteNews that they want to share our unique news service with anyone and everyone they know. Well, soon it will be easier than ever to let your friends know about LifeSiteNews, and to recommend that they sign up for our daily e-mails.
We are creating a tool that will allow readers to punch in the e-mail addresses of their friends and family, and to send them an e-mail recommending that they subscribe to our news service emails. With one click of their mouse, your friends and family can subscribe to our daily news and start reading our breaking stories about life and family issues.
As soon as this tool is ready we will run a “send-to-friend” campaign, to see how many new subscribers we can get signed up in a set period of time. Keep your eyes peeled for that, because we’re going to need your help!
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg of all the clever ideas that are out there to improve LifeSiteNews. Our brains are always working overtime, dreaming up new schemes, and we’d never stop talking if you asked us to tell you about all of them!
At LifeSiteNews, the sky must be the limit for what we must do to spread the truth about life and family. We’ve got a team of young, energetic, professional and deeply devoted writers, editors, managers and technical staff ready and willing to do whatever it takes to get our crucial reports out to the masses.
But at the same time, of course, how much we ultimately do depends mostly upon you. And so today, once again, we have to urgently appeal to you to contribute to our Christmas fundraising campaign.
It has been tougher to raise needed funds this year. If we don’t reach our $150,000 goal this campaign, the new, exciting plans we need to develop and complete are not going to happen and, as stated a few days ago, we are even going to have to start cutting some services.
As the assistant editor, and the main person in charge of our technical development projects, that would break my heart – especially at a time when we are attracting more people than ever to LifeSiteNews to learn the truth about life and family!
Sincerely,
John Jalsevac
Assistant-Editor
LifeSiteNews.com
U.S. and International Donors
Click here to donate online.
Call our office at (888) 678-6008 x.923 between 9:00 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST.
To donate by mail, print out and fill in one of our Adobe Acrobat PDF format mail-in forms (Click here). Then mail it with your check, money order, or credit card information to the address below. Please note that you can set up an automatic recurring donation using your bank account or credit card by indicating your intention to do so on the check or mail-in form.
LifeSiteNews.com, Inc.
4 Family Life Lane
Front Royal, VA 22630
USA
Canadian donors
Click here to donate online.
Call our office at (888) 678-6008 x. 923 between 9:00 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST.
To donate by mail, print out and fill in one of our Adobe Acrobat PDF format mail-in forms (Click here). Then mail it with your check, money order, or credit card information to the address below. Please note that you can set up an automatic recurring donation using your bank account or credit card by indicating your intention to do so on the check or mail-in form.
LifeSiteNews.com
104 Bond St.
Toronto, ON
M5B 1X9
*If the donation is towards a certain promotion or campaign, (i.e. Fall Campaign 2011) please indicate this on the mail-in form and check.