Newspaper web site gains in popularity

Southast Missourian

The Southeast Missourian's Web site -- seMissourian.com -- is a free "personal local research think-tank" that includes breaking stories, specialized archives and several other features for online users.

That's according to Rust Communications co-president Jon Rust, who addressed the Lions Club during its noon meeting Wednesday at the Holiday Inn.

It's also becoming more popular. In 2002, the site was accessed by 350,000 unique users. Of those, 105,914 came back to the site a few times, Rust said, and 22,000 users logged on regularly. The site logged 61 million hits and more than 10 million page views.

Rust also mentioned that users can receive e-mail headlines, view online-only local photos or contribute to the popular Speak Out section. seMissourian.com was also the country's second newspaper to subscribe to the Associated Press's 24-hour online news service called CustomWire, which provides continuous news, including access to audio and video.

"It's giving us something we didn't have before," Rust said.