New feature

From the first days of Exposure, we took the stand to never put ads on the platform and instead, focus on building the best product we can that storyteller will love and pay for.

Thankfully that worked and now, thanks to our amazing customers we can start to explore the next part of the journey: Getting our members paid for their amazing stories.

From today you can now use Web Monetization technology to do just that with your site and stories.

Web Monetization is an open technology that allows someone viewing a webpage to stream very small payments (micropayments) to the creator in real-time.

Now, visitors who have a Coil.com membership can stream small payments to you as they spend time on your Exposure sites and stories.

This is a new and exciting technology for the web and is picking up wider adoption by the day. As adoption grows the amounts you could possibly earn will increase as will the community supporting the open web.

As Coil puts it:

"Our monetization model offers an alternative to the status quo of paid advertisements and selling the public’s attention to the highest bidders – A solution that will serve the people who aren’t being served well today."

We have many more plans for monetization and future versions of this feature so stay tuned. If you have any feedback or questions, please let us know at hello@exposure.co ✌️

Learn more on how to get started→

New feature

You can now set any published story as your About Page, this will help tell visitors who you are and what you care about. An About Page is helpful if you use Exposure as your main website.

When enabled, a story set as your About Page will be hidden from your main stories but will be linked to via an "About" link in all your menus ( Next to "Contact", "Categories", etc).

Setting an About Page Story

From the Options menu, in any published story simply toggle "Set as About Page" to enable. The story will instantly be used as your About Page.

The "About" Link

A link to your new About Page will appear in the menus of your site and the footer of your stories. If you have the Menu Builder enabled then the link will appear in the "Native Exposure Items" section.

A few notes

• If you already have a story set as your About Page any stories set later will replace it.
• Unpublishing a story will disable its use as an About Page.
• A story must be published to set as an About Page. If you want to publish without notifying your subscribers then disable the "Send Email Subscriber Notification" toggle in your story Options.
• Un-setting a story as your About Page will put it back in the typical story feed order.

New feature

The feedback button (or "Enjoy" button) is designed to give readers a quick way to interact with a story. It appears in the cover and footer of a published piece.

For some subjects, "Enjoy" is not the right feeling. The new Feedback Label allows you to choose from a selection of verbs to better fit the subject of any story. Such as…

• Enjoy
• Like
• Appreciate
• Give Thanks
• Acknowledge

You can find this new feature under the "Options" menu in any story under "Feedback Button Label".

Thanks to the Exposure community for helping craft this change.

Improvement

In an effort to always improve the accessibility of Exposure stories, you can now add an explicit Alt text description to any photo. Previously the Alt text was populated by the photo caption but this was not always ideal.

To add Alt text to a photo, simply open its detail view → hover the photo and click "Add Click-Through Link or Alt Text". From there you will see the form below to add Alt text.

This is available for new and existing stories.

The Alt text description will still use the photo caption if no explicit Alt text is present.

In the future, you will have the option to automatically generate Alt text descriptions powered by computer vision.

Notice

This moment is a critical one for confronting the racism, inequity, violence, and injustice that has oppressed so many for so long. Acknowledging that we still have much to learn, we cannot ignore the impact of systems of power and oppression that surround us.

Losing black lives is something we cannot overlook. And while it should not take protests to shake us from the unacceptable status quo, the voices being heard across hundreds of cities are doing just that. We deeply regret not speaking sooner.

Exposure is a small company, but we are committed to doing what we can. In addition to listening to, learning from, and amplifying Black voices, we have donated $2,000 to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. This organization works tirelessly for the people of Atlanta, Georgia — the city that Exposure is proud to call home.

We will also be donating 2% of monthly profits for the rest of 2020, with hopes to increase donations in 2021. Our contributions will be distributed across the following list of organizations that are working hard to fight racism and help black communities. We hope you will join us in donating if you are able.

• Black Lives Matter Global Network
• Southern Poverty Law Center
• NAACP

A Platform If You Need It

We would never want cost to keep anyone from using Exposure to support the Black Lives Matter cause or keep you from sharing your experience. If you need our tools to do this important work, email hello@exposure.co and we will issue you a free account. We will grant 100% of requests and will share as many stories as we can.

Lastly, we want Exposure to be a safe place for creators and readers. As such, we will continue to uphold our zero tolerance policy for hate speech and racism of any kind. As we commit to continued learning, we are ready to hear how else we can support you, educate ourselves, and further act with compassion.

Black lives matter.

Luke Beard, CEO and founder of Exposure

If you take issue with our stance or believe our actions are wrong, you can cancel your account at any time here →.

New feature

A quote can highlight the big ideas and themes of a story. With the Quote group, you can add a big bold typography driven quote and optionally cite who to attribute it to. The Quote design extends wider than the body of your story for more impact.

This group is limited to 250 characters for the quote and citation. The quote will also use the Heading font selected in your Design Options.

Adding a Quote Group

While in Edit mode for any story (new or old), click the "Quote" option to the right of the Content bar at the boom of your screen. You can add as many quotes to a story as you wish.

Once you have the group added and you have written or pasted your quote, optionally add a citation for who the quote is from. This is not required and will not appear if nothing is added.

New feature

Your Exposure site and stories already meet Section 508 and WCAG compliance and with our new Advanced Accessibility widget, you can go even further. The widget is part of the Exposure Business plan option and available to new and existing customers.

The widget covers the following features:

• Increase text size
• Increase text spacing
• Toggle legible fonts
• Cursor size
• Stop all animations (Note: Exposure will stop all animation if set as an operating system preference)
• Highlight links
• Read the page
• Keyboard navigation
• Multiple contrast modes for visual impairments

You can enable the widget via it's settings page with just one click. No additional setup required. Visit settings page →

Ensure an extra layer comprehensive compliance covering ADA, Section 508, WCAG 2.1 AA by offering a wide range of advanced accessibility features.

Explore the widget in action with our live demo →

An example of where the Advanced Accessibility Widget button will display on your site and stories

New feature

In a new addition to your story options, you can now change the base font size of the entire story in just a couple of clicks. Choose between Normal, Medium, and Large font sizes that will affect all the writing on your story.

You can find this new menu under "Options" → "Base Font Size"

You can still access the font size formatting menu within each group by highlighting the text you want to change.

New feature

Sometimes your stories are big, epic, and even quite long.

We heard feedback that visitors and authors would like to link to specific sections of a story to make them easier to share.

An easy way to do just that is now available for all stories!

To get a story section link: hover any group in any story and look for the section icon that will appear in the top right.

Once clicked you will have a link to that section of the story in your URL bar. Copy that and share how you need it.

Enjoy! 🙌

Story example by Exposure member @Trotternaama - https://www.trotternama.com/val-dorcia-under-the-tuscan-sun

Interface change

The "Un-publish Story" button has now been moved to right of the "Save Changes" button to avoid any miss-clicks when trying to save.

We have also added an extra step to confirm you want to un-publish just to make sure. Thanks for the feedback on the previous behavior sometimes being confusing.✌️