General Questions
Advertiser Questions
Non Profit Questions
Administrative
Technical
Who we are...
Yabba Dabba News is a fun approach to supporting your local service, church, school, and nonprofit groups. 10% of all purchases is donated to the local group you select.
We distribute a free printed version of the Yabba Dabba News to Local businesses and restaurants every other week. It is our way of introducing people to our shopping site. The content of the Yabba Dabba news paper is focused on the unusual, but always family friendly. Included in the content are tidbits about the local groups that are participating with the program.
On this web site, local groups have an easy way to post information about their group, including pictures and video. We hope you enjoy learning about all of the great groups of volunteers that make our community strong! Vote for your favorite group by making a purchase online. For more details, please visit the FAQ page.
What do you the shopper get out of this?
By shopping on the site for items and certificates from local retailers that you already visit or even the retailers you have never patronized before, you choose which group will receive 10% of your purchase. We require that the businesses do not inflate the prices for this service and there is absolutely no out of pocket expense for the buyer except for your purchase.
What does the local retailer get out of this?
New and increased business from local customers and supporters! Most retailers are excited to have your business and support their local community as well.
Yabba Dabba News is also an extra sales vehicle for them that provides a sense of pride by helping their own community. Finally, the 10% of each purchase that is donated, is tax deductible for the business.
What does the local group get out of this?
A source of funding! Yabba Dabba News will submit a check to them on a quarterly basis for their portion of sales attributed to them. With all of the disasters and turmoil in the USA, local non profits have suffered.
Contributions that were made locally in the past are being donated to national non profits to help those in need. That is fantastic, but some in our own backyard have been forgotten. We also hope to ease the burden on parents and tax payers alike for our schools extracurricular programs like football, baseball, soccer, band etc.
To attract supporters, the local groups receive an easy to use FREE web page with video, text, pictures and their own calendar. The calendar is a feature that enables you to view all the activities of local groups in your community on one calendar.
"It's truly a win win for everyone!"
How to shop
We are launching Yabba Dabba News in multiple markets. So, you will need to select the market you are interested in first. Use the drop down menu above to choose your desired area, and then submit it by pressing on the "click here" button.
This will display the generous local advertisers who support this program in your area as well as the next drop down menu to choose which local group will benefit from your purchase. Note, you can scroll back to research the different groups in your area that need your support.
Once you have decided who you would like to benefit from your purchase, click on the "go shopping" link. It's that simple!
Your certificate of value or certificate for product that you purchase will be mailed to you and you should receive it within a day or two.
Please note, you will find that you cannot get to the shopping site without picking a group first. If you wish to shop again in the future, you must select the group of your choice and follow the steps again. This is to insure that a local group will benefit from each sale.
If you have a group that would like to get involved or earn additional income, visit the fundraiser page.
Why the name Yabba Dabba News?
Well, we wanted the name to be memorable. Names like Yahoo and Google have been pretty successful. The Yabba Dabba is a nod to our local roots, Flint, Michigan. Fred Flintstone got his start bowling in Flint Michigan and coined the phrase Yabba Dabba Doo. Thus, Yabba Dabba News to talk about the great things local school, church and service groups are doing in your community!
Did Fred Flintstone really get his start in Flint Michigan?
Ask Jerry Preston of the Flint Convention and Visitors Bureau. You can find him at www.visitflint.org
How do the local groups benefit from this?
There are two ways actually. First, they are provided a free tool to promote their group. A simple to use template allows them to post their information, plus we built in an easy way to print a flyer to promote the scrip program. When their group is selected by a shopper, they earn 10% of the purchase. We write checks once a month to the group for their sales. They can even track their sales online.
Do I have to pick a group in order to shop?
Yes, we built it into the site to select a group first. When you select a group, it also selects the offers available for that group.
What type offers will you have in the store?
Our only requirement is that any business or offer is G Rated. We want our site to be friendly to young families.
How do you find the offers to put in the store?
We are aggressively hiring salespeople to call on local businesses in counties throughout Michigan. You will find that many of the restaurants that help us distribute the paper will have offers in our store!
Advertisers
What is in it for the business to sell in your store?
The business receives payment for what we sell, after deducting a commission and donation to the charity.
Can my business support only one group?
Yes. We can make your item available only to certain groups that you specify if you prefer.
Can I change or delete my offers?
Yes. Simply contact us to make any changes you like. We are not asking for a long term commitment. We are looking for win – win relationships.
Can I advertise in more than one region?
Yes. The same rates and rules apply for each region.
How many people will see my ad?
A lot… To be more specific we will be publishing our results from Google Analytics as the stats develop. You can plan on over two thousand pairs of eyes every two weeks on the print news if no one shares, more if they share, and the web is a bonus!
Where will people find the printed NEWS?
We are leaving the NEWS at coffee shops, donut shops, restaurants, plus our advertisers hand out a fair share. A distribution list can be found on the regional page.
Non Profit Organization – Administration of site.
How hard is it to set up my group’s web page?
We have spent considerable time and money on our end to make this as easy as possible. There are fields to enter text about your group, a simple link to attach a movie file or image and a calendar function. We will train your designated person to work with the site. It is best to have one or just a few people responsible to update the site with current information.
Who should be in charge of my group’s page?
We recommend designating a chairperson to oversee this like any other project. Find the most tech savvy in your group, that person will be less intimidated and more engaged.
What can we do with the page?
Update your pictures on a regular basis. Any event you have has been photographed by many digital cameras we'll bet! Get them to email pictures or movie files to the chairperson. Update your calendar and use it to keep your group informed of special dates. Print your page and solicit advertising dollars. Promote the shopping feature and solicit businesses to add their items to the shopping site.
If we find an advertiser, what do we do?
Contact us and we will place the ad for you on your page. We can create an ad for your advertiser if needed, a small charge may apply. Your group earns 40% of any ad sales!
What if we find a business to sell on the shopping site?
Contact us. We will visit with the business and set them up. All you have to do is provide us with who to contact and the best time if possible. Your group makes an extra 8% on any sale of their offer as the salesperson!
How do we know if our group is going to make money?
You can log into your affiliate account on our site and see up to date reports on what has been purchased by your visitors.
Non Profit Technical
Logging into your site:
www.yabbadabbanews.com/admin
Enter your login and password that we provide and you will see this menu
Non-Profit Administrator Menu
· Edit Non-Profit Presentation page
· Login to Calendar
All levels Menu
· Update my account
· Logout from Admin Menu
Edit Non Profit Presentation Page
(This is where you will create your web page and flyer)
- Add your logo (keep the size 300 x 171 pixels or less to fit correctly)
- You can change the background color if you like, white is default.
- Web Site WYSIWYG text and image editor is next
- Add your image (size must be 320 x 240 pixels) Keep the name simple, video file must have same name. The video file will replace the image if video is available, think of the image as a placeholder for your video.
- Add your text. If you have a habit of hitting “shift enter” to drop a line without a paragraph break you will see a debug screen pop up. Just close it and you can align your text. You can change color, size, limited fonts for web. This is the text that will be seen below your video if uploaded.
- Printed Page WYSIWYG text editor works the same way, you just have to be careful of the length of your page for it to print on one sheet properly. Some experimentation is required. You can add multiple pictures if you like.
- Upload your FLV video file. We'll explain how to make this file below. Here is where you browse to your file to be upload to the server. It will take some time to complete.
- Active or not…. When first setting up your page or making major changes, we suggest selecting NO so the site isn’t live. Hit the preview button and it will open a preview for you to review. If all is good, then select YES and submit, otherwise make your changes before making live. This is especially helpful with the print flyer feature.
Log Into Calendar Page
- You will be asked to log in to the calendar. Save a cookie to skip this next time.
- Scroll to the month, then click a + sign on you date to enter info
- Enter a brief description that will show on the page.
- Enter a long description that pops up when a visitor mouse’s over the event.
- Make sure it shows the correct day, enter time if appropriate, and save.
Update My Account
Use this link to change your basic setup information such as your name and email address.
Making a Move… step by step
If you have not played with a mini DV camcorder before, don’t be intimidated, it is easier than programming a VCR!
We will host and display up to a 32MB FLV video file which translates to about 25 minutes of video depending on the titles and features you add to the file when creating it.
Camera
It all has to start here. You have to record video and save it to your computer. There are ways to do this even with a 15 lb VHS Camera, but let’s focus on what most people have bought in the last three years, a mini DV camcorder.
Most mini DV camcorders have a Firewire connector. That is the fastest way to transfer your video from tape to your computer. Of course you need a Firewire connector on the computer as well. So you have your camcorder, Firewire cable and computer, now what...
- Turn on your computer. Connect the camcorder and computer with Firewire Cable. Turn on Camcorder.
- A window should pop up with the Found Device message and options. Select Windows Movie Maker from the options.
- No pop up? Start, Program Files, Windows Movie Maker. Click here if you don’t have Windows Movie Maker to download it.
- Once Windows Movie Maker is open select Capture Video
- Capture video into Microsoft Movie Maker as the AVI format. It says that it is for copying to a tape.
- The video is broken into the segments if you have stopped and started the recording.
- To edit the video, simply mouse over the ends, both start and end point and you can drag the ending and starting point of a clip to trim. More tools are available if you want to cut a portion out of the middle of a file.
- Make a title for your movie by clicking on Make Titles or Credits. You can add a title before or after any of your clips and add credits to the end.
- When you have your project set up how you want it, save the project by clicking on FILE and SAVE PROJECT. (as always, pay attention to where it saves)
- Now you are ready for your computer to make your movie!
- Click on the SAVE TO MY COMPUTER.
Make sure you still have DV-AVI (NTSC) selected as the format. The Flash Video encoder will not work with the Windows format.
Notice that you cannot change the size at this point, it will make a 720 x 480 pixel screen. We will fix that when we encode the video to Flash.
You now have an AVI file saved to your computer. Look at the size, mouse over, it is huge! We need to convert this into Flash and the end result must be under 32MB
Flash Video Encoder
A free video encoder is available to convert your AVI file to Flash (FLV) format. To get Riva FLV encoder visit: http://www.rivavx.com/?encoder and follow the links to a download site.
The installation is quick and you will be ready to encode your video!
Steps to Encode:
- Open the Riva FLV Encoder. Browse to your AVI file you created in the input window.
- Chose where to save the completed file (we use the same folder as the AVI) select a name for your FLV file (keep it short and simple, you will need an image with the same name only .jpg for your page)
- One the right hand side, change the video MOVIE SIZE to 320 x 240, the frame rate of 25 is fine for most video and make a smaller file. (the lower the frame rate the smaller the file, you have a 32MB file size limit limitation) leave the rest at default settings and hit the ENCODE button.
It will take some time to encode the video. The only indication that it is working is the grayed out screen. Take a break, you deserve it and when you come back in a half hour the video will be ready and you can preview it.
