CLICK & DOUBLE CLICK: SOUTHEAST MISSOURIAN TO GO ONLINE; CHECK US OUT AT www.semissourian.com (COLUMNS 22)

Cybertip: What would you like to see on the Southeast Missourian's web site? E-mail us at movnldd.net.

It's official. The Southeast Missourian is going online. We're busily working on our website.

We have some ideas about what we would like to see on our site. We want your ideas too. Keep in mind we're doing this on a limited budget. We hope to be up by late March or early April.

Peggy: The address is approved: www.semissourian.com. Please don't complain about the under-construction message at the site, a black page with gold type. We didn't put it there.

Joni: I hate when pages say under construction.

Peggy: The people who put up this message are the ones that issue the addresses, so no two are alike. It's also first-come, first-served. For example, we couldn't take www.missourian.com. It's already taken by the weekly Missourian newspaper in Washington, Mo., although they aren't online yet.

Joni: We considered lots of other catchy names, but decided to stick with something simple and straightforward. That way, you won't forget our address.

Peggy: A lot of newspapers are jumping online. Some are doing a good job. Others aren't. Newspapers, like most businesses, are experimenting with a lot of different features on the Internet.

Joni: To judge what you'd like to see on our newspaper site, you might want to look at what other newspapers are doing. A good collection of these sites can be found on the Associated Press Managing Editors website.

http://www.apme.com

Peggy: They have links to more than 150 newspapers across the country. They also select a newspaper website of the month.

Joni: We're nominating ourselves the first month we're up. With your help, we can win it.

Peggy: This month's winner is the New Orleans Times-Picayune's "N.O.net," home of the "BourboCam" and former employer of William Faulkner.

Joni: When you click on William Faulkner it takes you to the APME's newsroom dream team. They consider these men and women some of the brightest lights ever to practice our craft. This dream team includes such famous names as Mark Twain as editor in chief, Frederick Douglass as editorial page editor and Joseph Pulitzer as managing editor. You get the picture.

Peggy: Several other great names worked at newspapers: Charles Dickens, Ben Franklin, Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchhill, Walt Disney and Faulkner.

Joni: Another of Faulkner's claims to fame was that he was America's worst postmaster. According to the site: "Sitting as far away from the teller window at the University of Mississippi as he could manage, ignoring the pleas of patrons as he wrote, Faulkner was accused by superiors of throwing mail with postage guaranteed and all other classes into the garbage can. Faulkner's response: `I will be damned if I proposed to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp.'"

Peggy: That's what I call a public servant.

Joni: One of the things we've learned is you can shovel your whole newspaper out on the Internet or pick a niche and capitalize on that. We're leaning toward the latter.

Peggy: In Cape Girardeau, Rush Limbaugh seems a natural niche. Love him or hate him, this is his hometown.

Joni: Another niche we're looking at is the Mississippi River. A lot of people go down to the floodgates just to take a gander.

Peggy: I've suggested a river cam, a camera that would broadcast pictures of the Mississippi on our website. I love these cams.

Joni: Other features we're considering: online Speak Out, a section on local history, a resource room of helpful links, pages on our popular Random Acts of Kindness Week and a virtual tour of the newspaper, complete with our catchy jingle. We'd also like to feature a top local story of the day, and our daily columnists.

Peggy: Don't forget Click and Double Click. We're also interested in special features for parents, teachers and children. Perhaps some of the pages could be done by area schoolchildren.

Joni: What are other Missouri newspaper's doing on the Internet. One of the premier newspaper sites in Missouri is the Kansas City Star. It's clean and it loads fast and it's very deep.

http://www.kcstar.com

Peggy: This is the first newspaper site I've seen with online comics. Not only can you see the most recent comics updated daily, the featured strips have archives. You can read Cathy or Ziggy or others from the past weeks.

Joni: The Kansas City paper puts pretty much everything up, from their news to classified advertising and obituaries. I wonder if online funeral notices would interest people in this area?

Peggy: The Star has online, realtime chat. You download special software to participate.

Joni: Another "Missourian" does a good job for a smaller newspaper. The Digital Missourian is brought to you by the University of Missouri-Columbia journalism program.

http://www.digmo.org

Peggy: Again, this paper puts up a lot of their printed words -- from local to national news. One new feature they have added is online T.V. listings. Is that something we should investigate?

Joni: Some pages have passwords. You can't go everywhere.

Peggy: We are also considering linking to a continually updated news service. Is that something you'd like to see?

Joni: Another thing we've learned is that a website isn't the newspaper. You can look like a newspaper, but these websites must offer a lot of other features as well, including audio and visual elements to enhance the written word.

Peggy: E-mail us at movn@ldd.net or call us personally at 335-6611. You can reach me at Ext. 137 or Joni at Ext. 121. We'd love to get your input.

See you in cyberspace.

~Joni Adams is managing editor and Peggy Scott is graphics editor at the Southeast Missourian.