About iMonticello

The Whats:

iMonticello is a community portal for Monticello, Illinois. The main purpose of the site is to provide an open area for people living in the Monticello area to interact with each other and the community itself. There are very few true "static" areas of the portal and contributors always have the ability to go back and revise, edit, or remove any content they provide. 

The Whys:

A few years ago, when I moved to Monticello, Illinois, I found it was difficult to locate a single location to find everything I needed to know about the area without having to search the Internet over and over, or make several phone calls. After going through that experience I thought there has to be a better way, which is what made me decide to put this page together.

After I came up with the idea for this page, I changed my thinking a little and turned it more into a Community Portal, where the people who live in the city can help shape the type of information which appears on the site. Currently the portal has a local weather field, news feeds of all the area newspaper, television stations, and radio stations. There are also various directory areas for city services, schools, and businesses, churches, personal Blogs, and a News & Announcements Section; each area is open and all site members are able to add listings, and edit their own submissions.

Down the road I plan to add a Stories section, an Articles section, and additional locations to allow more social interactions including the possibility of adding personal photo gallery for all site members. If you have any additional ideas feel free to drop by the "Suggestion Box" over in the forums section and let me know what it is.

The Hows:

Anyone can see almost all areas of the website, but unless you have a membership on the site you cannot make any entries or posts. To join the site you have a few different options listed below.

User Account - All of your settings are contained locally; and you do have the ability to link your account to your Facebook account then you can use either the Facebook connect button or enter your account information to login.

Facebook Connect Button - This uses your Facebook account information to access the site. It will copy some of your basic Facebook information settings to your user profile. All of your information remains private, and it in no way gives iMonticello access to your Facebook profile or Wall section.