We launch our third, "micro-local" Web site this Sunday, June 1, serving the small and beautiful town of Wayne. The site is accessible through our home pages (www.kjonline.com and www.onlinesentinel.com) or directly at www.waynejournal.com

As you may know, we previously launched sites for China (www.chinasentinel.com) and Farmington (www.farmingtonsentinel.com). They have been well-received by readers, community leaders and local advertisers. So now we're on to community No. 3.

Ernesto Burden, of The Telegraph in Nashua, N.H., was a guest speaker at the Maine Press Association spring conference today. Ernesto is widely considered to be a top Web expert in New England; he is the current president of the New England Associated Press News Executives Association.

He said a lot of things about newspaper Web sites that I thought I'd share. His job is different from mine. He is equally responsible for ad revenue and news content. As the editor, I am responsible for news content — in the papers, and online. Our Web manager (Ben Sturtevant) and Advertising Director (Cindy Stevens) are responsible for ad results.

A few months back we launched a very-local Web site called ChinaSentinel.com. You can access it directly or from a prominent link on our home pages www.onlinesentinel.com and www.kjonline.com.

The idea was to provide that single community with all kinds of news, directories, contact and other information.

We promised at the time that more "micro-local" Web sites like ChinaSentinel.com would be forthcoming. This weekend, we make good on that promise.

We are proud of our new local Web site ChinaSentinel.com, but we want to know how you feel about it.

Publisher John Christie, several editors and managers and I will be at Tobey's Market on Route 3 in South China at 4:30 p.m. Thursday to promote the site, but also to get opinions about it.

We've been working on this for months.

This Saturday, the Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal staffs will launch a wicked local news Web site called ChinaSentinel.com

This site will be the most complete compilation of news, lists, contact information and directories that you'll find anywhere. We've compiled a list of 70 businesses active in and around China, South China and Weeks Mills. We name which doctors and dentists in the area are accepting new patients and how to reach them. We have town and school officials — on all kinds of committees and boards — and tell you how to contact them.

Our Kennebec Journal Web site has just won three significant awards, and we wanted to share the news with you. The New England Associated Press News Executives Association last week said the Kennebec Journal/MaineToday site was the best overall site in New England for a newspaper with daily circulation under 40,000. That's first place, overall, for daily newspapers in our size category. We are very pleased.

Also, the KJ site won first place for best Sports pages online, and for how we present the news at our site ("News Presentation" was the name of the category).

One judge wrote that our site, "Offers the best use of rollover detail on the top menu I've seen anywhere, plus it offers a full package of updated news, clean organization and Web-only features."

For News Presentation, one judge mentioned our treatment of the "For I Was Hungry" project as a high point at our Web site. The judge also noted our site, "Offers breaking news, even on weekends, as well as well-packaged feature stories with multimedia and reader-involvement tools."

While the kjonline.com site won these awards, it is important to note that the Morning Sentinel staff shares in these. Many of the news stories and Web updates that we do every day are shared among both of our sites (kjonline.com and onlinesentinel.com), and written by reporters at both the Sentinel and KJ. Two of the newsroom employees behind this are: Elizabeth Comeau, in the KJ newsroom; and Glenn Turner at the Morning Sentinel.

These awards are a credit to our colleagues at MaineToday in Portland, too. They set up much of our current home-page design and provided tools and training that we needed to do some of the things that the NEAPNEA judges liked.

And they're a credit to our readers and our communities. Everything we write and take photos of involves you and this beautiful, intriguing area that we call home.

Although we are proud of this accomplishment, that doesn't mean your feedback -- critical, neutral, positive, whatever -- should stop. To the contrary, we are really just beginning to hit our stride online. Now is a great time to tell us what you'd like to see in the future.

Online readers: Today I'm asking for your help. We are making changes to our Web sites, kjonline.com and onlinesentinel.com. I'm wondering: How do you like them?

The best thing we've done, to my mind, this year is we have consistently produced 10 to 25 breaking-news updates a day, Monday through Friday. We are transforming from a daily, morning newspaper environment to an all-day, print and online, news operation. We still pay considerable attention to our two daily newspapers. But we realize online readers want more.

We've added crime news, government news, traffic/commuting news and more to our breaking-news reports. I still want us to do more on weekends, when our staffing is "thinner." But we've made nice progress.

In recent weeks, we've launched three blogs: Commuting with AJ (by reporter AJ Higgins); a NASCAR blog by Jennifer Lizotte of Pownal; and mine. What do you think of those? What would you like us to add? There's no question we'll do more, but we want to be smart about it. We have a finite number of resources to throw around.

By year's end, it's safe to say you will see more changes. We are contemplating more staff blogs, Q&As with staff writers, a photo gallery and blog featuring our outstanding wildlife art, and more. Now's a good time to weigh in. You can post your comments here or e-mail me privately at econrad@centralmaine.com

Remember, we are a small-ish news operation. We have 61 employees at the KJ and Morning Sentinel newsrooms. So please try not to model us after the New York Times or USA Today. But, having said that, if there are topics that major Web sites address and we do not -- yet the topics fit our markets -- that would be helpful too.

John Christie, the publisher of the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel, has led meetings the past two days telling all of our 200-plus employees what we've done well in recent months and talking about the challenges — John candidly calls them "problems" — facing our company and the newspaper industry.

His message is by no means a downer. I'm really abbreviating his eloquent (he is my boss) words. He's saying:

— The Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel, and our Web sites, have one of the best "reaches" in our industry. Eighty-seven percent of all people in our markets read our newspapers or one of our Web sites over a 7-day period. So far as we know, only the Times-Picayune of New Orleans matches that, and people down there have so depended on that newspaper for their news post-Hurricane Katrina that it's no wonder that very good paper is a national leader.

— Paid circulation is dropping slowly at both of our newspapers. But, our circulation numbers are better than most newspapers, which are declining more quickly. If you're wondering how our "reach" can be so strong while our paid circulation gradually drops, it's because some people share a newspaper several times after one person buys it. Also, the Web sites are gaining readers all the time, readers who don't always buy the print paper (but often do). It's a safe bet that sky-high fuel prices encourage people to become "pass-along readers" too.

— Our advertising sales are strong, especially locally. Not as great as five years ago, but strong. Local advertisers realize how strong our market "reach" is, and know that we're a good place to put your money if you want a whole lot of people in this area to see what you're selling. Our sales staff also knows its customers well.

— Readers told a research company we hired last year that basically they like our newspapers and rely on them. The research firm found no major content weaknesses, and that's highly unusual for them. They do not tell you what you want to hear. We are weak in serving women between the ages of 18 to 35, but mostly we get favorable ratings. We are reaching out to young, female readers in our Life and Leisure Sunday section. You might keep an eye out for that.

— Our researchers said there is one thing our readers want us to change immediately, and they told us loud and clear: They want earlier delivery. Central Mainers are early risers and they think we are delivered a little too late. Production Director Dick Boyer and Circulation Director Tim Crilley are working with John, me and many others on that. We will have more to say about it soon. This will happen, sooner rather than later.

John's other message to our staff — many of whom have worked here for a decade, two decades, or longer — is that this is a time for change. We are doing breaking-news updates on the Web, blogs, gearing up for online ad sales, seeking to deliver the paper earlier, and much more. All of these things force employees to change focused and efficient routines that were years in the making. That's hard to do.

The newspaper industry isn't renowned for speedy change or innovation, though I think this is happening with our Web sites especially.