The CityTools news and classified advertising network product provides what amounts to the Rosetta Stone for news and classifieds. CityTools' easy-to-use system allows publishers to form flexible, fully controlled networks to distribute their news and classifieds amongst themselves.

What makes this approach radical is that CityTools doesn't attempt to suck your news and classifieds into a giant central repository. Nor are we interested in building a secondary brand off your news and classifieds.

We want your products and brands to flourish and we think the best way to do that is to circulate news and classifieds around the edge of the network and keep them where they belong, with you. With the CityTools approach, you have all the benefits of the large repositories and none of the drawbacks.

Major features of the CityTools News/Classified network hub

• Publishers may flexibly create and/or participate in networks with other publishers or other members of their communities.
• Publishers always maintain full control of what enters the network feed and what they receive from it.
• News articles and classified ads are distributed to other publishers who participate in your networks. Think of it as a file-sharing network for news and classifieds. Only this is a file sharing network designed for publishers and with full control.
• File types exported from your editorial front end -- such as XML, CSV, or Morris Communications classified formats -- are managed and converted on the fly for publishers
• Content from the network is delivered to publishers as XML, CSV and RSS. The latter is supplied in case publishers wish to offer news or classifieds as RSS feeds.
• Robust category mapping tools allow publishers to ensure content winds up in the right category when it arrives at each participating network member's site.
• Flexible access controls permit publishers to ignore incoming content from any network participant or block specific members from receiving certain content.
• Publishers may create invitation-only network memberships to allow, say, a real estate brokerage or a high school journalism program, to supply classified or news directly to the publisher using CityTools translation, mapping and distribution mechanism.
• Publishers who decide to receive feeds from the CityTools public networks -- open to any information supplier -- retain the ability to block incoming content from a particular supplier.
• In extreme cases where publishers have a concern about a public supplier of news or classified ads, the publisher may take an additional step and "ban" that member, which renders the publisher's network completely invisible to the banned party.
• Publishers may broadcast messages to all members of their network or send messages to individual participants.
• Publishers and the members of their networks maintain complete control of what happens with their content. CityTools has no branding requirements. The purpose of the CityTools news and classifieds networks is to empower publishers, not create yet another brand. This is all about you, the publisher.
• All content on the network moves with full source information, so everyone always knows what they've received and who the ultimate rights holder to the content is.
• It is assumed that all rights to the content remain with the originator unless the originator expressly relinquishes those rights. However it is the responsibility of every publisher to assert those rights and establish the terms of sharing with other publishing members of their network.
• All acceptable use permissions (for example the right to print content or present it online) are established by the respective publishers in a network.
• Any financial consideration for content moved through the CityTools networks is established between the respective publishing members of a network. CityTools does not try to insert itself into the business logic of your networks.
• Download content to appear on your site or in your publication at your convenience. Do it once a day, once a week, or 20 times a day. It's up to you.

There are two types of News/Classified network accounts.

• Publishing accounts: permit organizations to create their own networks, participate in other networks, have full control over what organizations and individuals may feed their sites. Publishers have the right to use the content downloaded from CityTools in any manner agreed upon by the other members of the publishers' networks. In order to publish content from the network you must have a publishers account. Publishers may have an unlimited number of suppliers feeding them for a single monthly fee.
• Supplier accounts: submit news stories and classified ads to a specific publishers' network (provided the publisher permits it) or supply ads to the CityTools public news and classified feeds.

Pricing

• Publisher accounts: $650 per month if paid by credit card with automatic renewal, $750 per month if invoiced. Unlimited suppliers and unlimited network members.
• Supplier accounts: Free.