dailycorinthian.com - North Mississippi's Local News Source

Paper website has new look
Published Friday, March 21
By L.A. Story Houry
Staff Writer
The Daily Corinthian is moving into a new era with a fresh look and innovative ideas as it recently relaunched a renovated website at www.dailycorinthian.com.
The need for a redesigned website became important as the local news source seeks to encompass readers from all over the World Wide Web.
"All this came from the fact that research has shown that the Internet reader and the print copy reader are two entirely different people," explained Daily Corinthian Publisher Reece Terry. "The people who read our Internet version may never pick up a print copy. So, this is an attempt to broaden our audience."
The Daily Corinthian contracted former employee Zack Steen to be the web administrator to redesign and launch the new site.
Steen is the Internet and Inventory Manager at Frankie Blackmon Automotive of Corinth. He had been the designer of the original Daily Corinthian website, but left to take his current position in 2003.
Since that time, Steen said the website had been somewhat neglected because there had not been one person assigned to maintain the site. Instead, it was the responsibility of several people, which can lead to inconsistencies.
Internet readers have made several suggestions -- one in particular.
"'More detail' - that was a direct request from our online readers," said Terry. In direct response to the suggestions, at three full-length local stories are featured each day and the change has been well received.
"People have been praising the new site up and down. I have gotten so many e-mails of people who are so glad we finally have full stories online -- and pictures. People who have moved out of the area ... they are now going to the site every day to read the stories," said Steen.
"Comments from our users have been extremely positive," Terry agreed. The numbers don't lie. Steen said www.dailycorinthian.com averages 1300-1400 hits a day since the redesign. He said he had seen the numbers as high as 1800.
"Those numbers are 'unique' visitors. People who are visiting the site for the first time. For our advertisers, that's a selling point for the site. They can get up to 1800 new pairs of eyes a day to see their ad," said Steen. Among other enhancements include a poll of the week and feature photos. Readers who want world and national news -- in addition to local news -- can get it all in one place. The site also offers Associated Press video links.
AP Video offers breaking news coverage of world events.
Another big addition is that the Daily Corinthian is partnering with Yahoo to enable job seekers to search employment ads nationwide and post resumes using Yahoo's Hotjobs.
Advertisers who place a "help wanted" classified ad with the Daily Corinthian will be able to have their ad posted on Yahoo's Hotjobs.
"Full daily classifieds are loaded and weekly sales inserts -- like Gardner's and Roger's Supermarkets -- soon will be loaded and you can pull up the current week's ad and print it out," said Steen.
Steen mentioned another enhancement that is on its way is posting submitted reader photos. He said it would be a modern, web version of "Snapshot Saturday" -- a popular page that used to run in the print version of the daily newspaper.
Looking toward the future, Steen said other changes are on the way, such as archived obituaries and stories. In the future, the site may also see more interactive items like the popular weekly poll.
"We want to add as much interactiveness to the site as possible without losing control of it," explained Steen. "There might be something like a guest book or a forum type of situation."
Steen noted that these ideas were still in the planning stage.
The future of the website looks positive and Terry said any comments or suggestions concerning the redesign are welcome. Readers can visit the Daily Corinthian website at www.dailycorinthian.com.