Havre Daily announcing text messaging service

Things are changing fast, and in the newspaper world doubly so.

In the past year-and-a-half the Havre Daily News has started using new tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, in addition to our website, havredailynews.com to give you, the readers, news and a place to talk back, to let Havre Daily News know what the community thinks about what's going on.

The level of engagement has been tremendous. With nearly 1,100 Facebook followers and a small but growing Twitter following, it is obvious you want the news and you want it conveniently. This excites us.

With that in mind, we are happy to announce today another way for everyone to get their community news, completely free, on their own terms — Hi-Line Text Alerts

When you visit www.text.hiline.us, you can sign up for messages on a number of topics, from breaking news to the latest local sports scores, from instant extreme weather alerts to a daily morning forecast, and have messages sent to your cellphone where ever you are, as soon as the news happens.

This new program is not only a great new way for you to get the latest news from us, but we are also working with town governments and school districts across the Hi-Line to help you get the information you need, when you need it.

The governments of Havre, Chinook, Harlem and Hingham have signed on to keep people informed about things like plowing schedules after storms or any of the Hi-Line's many possible water concerns; if there is not enough, too much or if it will just be smelling weird for a few days.

School districts from Harlem to North Star also came on board to keep in touch with parents about possibilities like school cancellations, bus schedule changes or any unexpected changes people need to be informed of as soon as possible, sooner than they would sitting around a radio all morning.

So we hope you'll join us in this new experiment, one of many to come this year, as we explore the future of community journalism.

Go to www.text.hiline.us and follow these simple steps to get useful information sent straight to your cell phone.

1) Enter your cell number.

2) Tell us which company provides your cell service.

3) Pick what information you want to receive.

If you have any suggestions, questions or problems, email us at [email protected]