Published , by Asif Khan
Published , by Asif Khan
We decided over a year ago that programmatic advertisements and banners are not the future of online publishing. Since then, the Shacknews development team has been working on ways to implement a subscription service that would offer a value while helping to keep the lights on. I am so happy to unveil the latest iteration of Shacknews’ native subscription service.
Shacknews is not a charity, and we don’t need to go to our readers with our hats in our hands asking for money to create specific content. We went a whole year without ad revenue, and we released all sorts of great articles, guides, long reads, and videos. This is a business, and we believe we can do our own thing with higher margins and a better user experience for our loyal Shacknews community.
New Shacknews Mercury is launching with four tiers:
Mercury Mega ($1/month, $10/year)
Mercury Super Mega ($50/year)
Mercury Ultra Mega ($100/year)
Mercury Ludicrous ($1000/year)
Shackers can gift each other subscriptions by purchasing and sending Mercury codes for redemption. This will also allow for users to stack subscription payments.
Here are some other features we have added to the site with today’s update:
LOL Script Integration
Thanks to the help of ThomW, Shacknews has integrated the 12-year-old LOL Script into our website. We look forward to improving the gamification of our site and the integration of the LOL Page is the first step.
Improved Login OAuth with Social Integration
Shackers can now link accounts from Facebook, Twitter, Steam, Battle net, Github, and Google. This will improve the onboarding process for new users, and also sets Shacknews up for our upcoming projects.
GDPR Compliance - Delete Account function
Shackers now have the right to be forgotten. Any shacknews.com user can now go into user settings and delete their account. This will also delete their entire post history. You can thank the European Union for this new feature. Shackers should beware of the delete account function, because once you confirm deletion, your account and post history will be gone forever. No need to message Duke Nuked, the right to be forgotten is in the hands of our users now.
Shacknews Chatty Search repaired
We have moved the Chatty over to a new AWS server and have a brand new SOLR search that actually works. Thanks to Shackers for their patience as we fixed this very important feature.
With completion of Phase 2 of our Shacknews redesign, we will be shifting our focus to our next projects. The dev team will be watching for community feedback and addressing bugs as needed. Please understand. If you like what we are doing, please consider signing up for Shacknews Mercury today. Do it for Shacknews!