For several years now, we have allowed customers to select a Web page that is displayed in a frame at the bottom of the news release. Out initial goal was to provide those reading the news release with an easy way to interact with a customer’s Web site by placing it directly within the release. Over the years, customers have used the feature in a variety of ways: to highlight specific landing pages, as a holding page for multimedia content that may not have fit neatly into the release, etc. In fact, it has been a feature that a number of other services have adopted.
There are some shortcomings with the feature that have become increasingly evident as of late. First, the limitations on the frame size imposed by it’s placement within the news release template creates a less than perfect user experience that involves excessive scrolling. Second, the presence of the frame is somewhat of a security risk as we have had numerous customers (unwittingly) place sites infected with malware into the frame, which has a negative impact on our site as whole. Lastly, the presence of the frame may be lowering the number of users who click-through to visit the customer site itself.
One idea we have been thinking through would involve replacing the frame with a screenshot of the customer Web site that would launch the site in a new browser window when clicked upon.
So we’d like to hear from you, the PRWeb customer, on how you feel about being able to place a Web page in a frame within the release and whether or not our alternative would be an acceptable solution.
