HereCast Feature Updates and Changes October 2019

See what's coming soon to HereCast!

Easily change and update your account info 

Change your account’s email address, username and password.



Choose your feed view

Only want to see posts from casters you follow? Now introducing the “Just for You” feed view. 

Manage your account and settings all in one place

Goodbye My Stuff! All of your account info, posts, drafts and metrics will live in one place, on your caster page. 

Other changes

• The subscribe button will become a follow button

• Each page will now be associated with only 1 login. If you would like to create a new page, you must register a new login.

Announcing: "Casters"

In December of 2015 we put out a call to writers in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire. We were proposing a radical idea. If you like to write and want to share information about your community, you can post it on our site (unedited) and get paid for it. 

Since 2015, we have had over 500 locals, just like you, create a page and write about their community. Many of them have established a following and have continued to post. We referred to these locals who posted as “Bloggers”. For some, this name made sense and they owned it. They were creating just that. A blog. However, for others who were reporters, historians or folks who simply posted events or things for sale… well this name didn’t make sense. 

Earlier this year we began calling anyone who posted on the site a Contributor. We heard from some that this seemed to imply that these people were paying us, which is not the case. Quite the opposite. 

After some discussion, it seemed like what we needed was to create our own term. A term that locals could claim and define themselves. We needed something that would tie posters to a place… this place, HereCast. 

Caster definition:

noun: caster; plural noun: casters 

3. each of a set of small wheels, free to swivel in any direction, fixed to the legs or base of a heavy piece of furniture so that it can be moved easily.

We believe the term “Caster” aligns with what is actually taking place on our site because: 

Casters should be “free to swivel in any direction.” 
Local information is ever flowing, ever changing and we want to make it easy for Casters to share what they think their community will find interesting or helpful for their daily lives.

Casters are “fixed to a base…  so that it can be moved easily.”
HereCast is your place to share what matters locally. We will provide the support to allow you to easily share your HereCast posts with fellow locals across platforms and devices. 

We hope these changes will allow fellow readers and casters, to easily share and discover what makes your community come alive.

Calling all Champions of Local: Become a HereCast Ambassador!

What is a HereCast Ambassador?

They are champions of local, committed to connecting fellow locals in their community and empowering others to share what’s happening around them in order to create a thriving local here and now network. 

Does that sound like you? Read on! 

HereCast Ambassadors…

• Provide the team at HereCast with regular feedback and ideas about updates and features

• Sport their HereCast swag

• Spread the word about HereCast through word of mouth, online, in their communities etc…

And they get…

• One-of-a-kind t-shirts, notepads and stickers for themselves and to share with friends.

• Intel on upcoming features and events

• Invites to paid user testing sessions

If you’d like to become a HereCast Ambassador, shoot me (Jennifer) an email to jennifer@herecast.us and I’ll dub thee HereCast Ambassador for life.

New on HereCast: Like Counts

Starting today, you will see an update to the like button. Likes will now be counted! Months ago we changed what was the bookmark, which allowed users to save a post for later, to a heart. Since then we’ve decided to enhance the feature. The like count will appear next to the heart on all posts. By doing so, we want to give readers the power to show their support for posts they love and keep track of everything they’ve liked. 

You may have heard that Instagram and Facebook might be doing away with like counts all together. Why go against the trends of Instagram and Facebook? Well first of all, we aren’t trying to be them. 

We are building HereCast to be a place for locals to post and discover what’s happening around them, as well as show their love for local. We see like counts as a way for readers to be able to show their support for those who post beyond just a pageview, and give fellow readers a sense of what others in their area find important. In order to like a post you must be a registered user, so you can trust that engaged locals are the ones providing the feedback. 

We hope you will see this feature as a way to thank your neighbors and community members for taking their time to share local information with you. Whether it’s an upcoming event, a story about a new restaurant, town information… whatever it might be, if you like it, click the heart! 

Got feedback for us? Let us know what you think by emailing us at help@herecast.us. 

Best, 

The HereCast team