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You're probably going to test the Zipper water by
reading local news and local gossip posts that other
people have posted. That's how it usually starts.
Eventually (maybe immediately for the brazen), you're
going to want to actually comment or better yet, you may
even have local news insight that no one else helps.
It's time to step up to the plate and add your first Zip
post. Now, you're officially a local news reporter all
from your smart phone app. Power to the thumbs!
So
you're sitting in a parking lot anticipating your 32
ounce Dr Pepper when you see a giant 18 wheeler drive
right through the front of the 7 Eleven right in front
of you. No one was hurt (Thank goodness). You want to
add it to the Zipper since it is local news and after
all, how random! You pull out your Iphone and switch
off the Katy Perry song that's blaring. Switch over to
the Zipper app and boom, you have the main news window.
First thing to decide is whether you just post to the
main window or do you narrow it down to one of the
channels which act like category filters. Think of the
Jeopardy game where they have questions grouped by
category. In this case, we have answers (Jeopardy kind
of does as well but you get the picture) grouped by
category to look at. Some of the defaults are ready to
roll. What exactly is an 18 wheeler smashing through a
7 Eleven behinds really noisy and messy? A safe bet is
Local News. This is an easy choice if you can't
pinpoint an exact category for your Zip post. You look
further down to see the other categories. Traffic?
Hmmm....this isn't really traffic per se unless you're
worried about driving around the 7 Eleven parking lot.
We're hoping you have better things to do than that but
who knows?
In
the end, you decide on the Local News channel as the
best place to put it. Not a bad choice. First, switch
over to the Local News channel and see if there's
already something there about the 7 Eleven catastrophe.
Who knows, you might not be the first or you may have
additional info to an existing Zip (which we'll discuss
next). Nothing there so you look at the bottom of the
window where you see "Add Post". Click on that button
and the add post window comes up. You'll automatically
see your picture. In the header window, you add the
essentials (under 140 characters). This is what will
show as the heading on the main window and it's
important to give the gist of your post as succinctly as
possible. If there's more info to post, you can
continue but only the first 140 characters will show on
any of the main windows. In our 7 Eleven example, a
good heading might be something like "18 Wheeler crashes
into 7Eleven on 4th and University Ave. No one
hurt!". You add that in your post. You can also
change the Channel on this main posting page. The
system will automatically use the Channel you were
previously in as a default but changes can be made on
the add post window as well as later if you decide to
change it. Only the main author (not re-zips) can
change the Channel later on. You hit add post and
voila, you're officially a local news or local gossip
author online! In real time which the best part since
we don't want to wait till the next day's newspaper to
find out what's happening. We want to know now. You
can always go and delete a prior message if you're the
author.
If
you find that the message is already there, you can just
add additional info (assuming you have further insight)
with a rezip under the main thread. Keep in mind that
pictures or video can be added with your original posts
or rezips.
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