You guys are on the right track.

I think your website is the best out there. I check it several times a day for the updates you post. Am a NASCAR fan so enjoy that part as well. To be able to read others points of view on different subjects is what attracted me and keeps me checking the site off and on all day at work. Keep up the good work...Janice

I think your website is great and improving all the time.One thing I would like to see is more online coverage of professional sports.

The changes are fine and have made the site generally more user friendly. But I mourn the lack of a search engine for a name or topic. In the past, obituary notices were available for those of us who research genealogy; after 365 days they are gone, additionally there is no way to research the current archive for, say Fogg, as a maiden name.

When you first see the homepage for the KJ, there's one photo at the top; then there's a whole list of stories but no photos to go along with them.

It looks as if in that list the stories are occasionally trying to be grouped by town, even though the town the story’s listed under and the dateline in the story frequently don’t match. But then you realize that what you’re seeing is the town - the title of the story - then the town again, in the dateline. That just seems unorganized. For example: “SIDNEY Is it a mountain lion? SIDNEY — ” Why list the town twice?

If something in that list is a feature story, or a breaking news story, why not list it that way? Meanwhile, the “Starstruck” feature has had a prominent display for weeks now as other equally important, or exciting to read, news stories file past it every day. In the paper, stories are grouped by “importance,” i.e. front page of the paper, front page of the local section; shouldn’t the Web site generally follow that guideline?

It would be great if stories that followed up huge news stories; such as the murder of Louise Brochu or the 6-year-old who drowned in the pool; contained links to those earlier stories along with the follow up story.
It seems to me that huge news stories like that should be featured separately, instead of just grouped into some big list, and kept in a noticeable spot for more than a day. Readers flock to this stuff and if it’s right in front of them will continue to read it, will read the follow up stories and the original stories again, even weeks after it happened, or for the first time if they missed the story the first time around but notice it’s posted with a follow up.

If somebody wants to know, for example, whatever happened to the Gardiner woman who was charged with stealing thousands of dollars from Christ Episcopal Church, or someone tells them about the story and they come to our Web site to find it; how much time is that person going to spend looking when they can’t easily find it, even within a day or two of when it was in the paper, or if they don’t know her name? Chances are, they won’t.

On the Bangor Daily News, they’ve prominently featured the story, “Baby’s death shocks Limestone residents” Thursday and Friday (I don’t remember seeing it on the KJ Web site) and I’m sure this will keep readers interested, as well as noticing this story.

There should be a way to feature breaking news — the shocking, out of the ordinary, news stories — seperately from routine, yet important, stories, like “Wayne hires 2 to Town Office posts.” These stories are different, attract more readers, and should look different than your average story. And why shouldn't readers know what type of story it is before they read it - whether it's breaking news, a featured story, local news - and if it's not a huge breaking news story, what method will you use to get someone interested enough to read it?

In a story like: “Shall we dance?” WINDSOR — “Do we send an invitation that says, I’d like to be with you?” one man asked. — What is supposed to draw the reader to that story? How many people will be so intrigued by it that they decide to open and read it, and how many will have no idea what it’s about and decide not to bother? When you only have a split second to intrigue someone, use that time wisely, make it seem exciting and worth their while.

Based on MER's comment, I checked out the Bangor Daily News website.

Not to worry --- that busy ad across the top, the messy banner, the 'who cares' retirement story and then the neccesity of scrolling all the way to the bottom to find local news is nothing to emulate.

Keep your no-bell-and-whistles banner, an eye-catching top photo, timely post-production news updates at the top right of the page, and your website will always be user friendly.

It's why I come to your newspaper for staying up-to-date.