Editor's Notes
We've heard from a lot of old friends — and made some new ones, too — in the last few weeks.
Those are the folks who have stumbled onto our Web site, noticed a difference and told us what they think of it.
After seven years, tracypress.com has a new look and a lot more content than it's ever had before. We haven't said much about it yet, because we're just getting started. But people notice change. Some of them are our neighbors in Tracy , some are former residents and some are just passersby in cyberspace.
“I miss seeing the paper when I travel,” Curtis Marshall of Tracy wrote in an e-mail last week. “I look online almost every day when I am on the road and have wished for years that your site would be expanded. I was so happy when I saw the new format.”
I could almost smell the sea breeze from an e-mail of retired Tracy High School teacher Jim White, now living in Hawaii . “Bravo, bravo, thank you, thank you,” he gushed. “Mahalo for the new Web site.”
Some other former Tracy residents we heard from are Sandy Toon, now in Newport, Ore., Shelley Sipe in Santa Maria and Bob Nelson, who moved to Africa in January.
I told the Sunrise Rotary Club about the reworked Web site last week when I visited, and the members were surprised.
“You mean I could read all the Tracy Press stories on the Internet?” an incredulous George Stein asked. He represents a generation that is often peeved at change of the technological sort, but he said it's a good move. He said he'll still subscribe to the Tracy Press, which he has done since September 1946, but he promises he'll check it out online, too.
That's good news for those of us who watch the changing media landscape. Paid newspaper circulations have dropped all across the country as TV and the Internet and a multitude of publications compete for people's time and attention. Young people (anyone, say, younger than 40) aren't reading newspapers as voraciously as their parents did. Yet free, online access to newspaper Web sites continues to grow, with numbers that represent a definite upsurge in newspaper online readership.
Just in the last few weeks, we've counted 1,400 visitors a day on the Web site, which should be good news to potential advertisers. Meanwhile, we appreciate the comments from readers.
Speaking of feedback, I am still hearing from a smattering of TP readers who miss “Dennis the Menace” and dislike some of the new comic strips on our Laugh pages.
“I think comics should make you smile, if not laugh out loud, and at the very least make you feel good,” Jean Cornwell wrote in an e-mail. “I would rather be uplifted than browbeaten when I finally make it to the comics.”
Don Drummond wrote to express just how strongly he feels about our decision to add new comics.
“I now see that you are heading in a more hip and so-called mainstream direction, so I won't renew at the end of this period,” he said. “It is sad to see a small-town paper go the way of reality television, but you will go there with one less subscriber.”
The comic that replaced “Dennis” is a single panel called “ Ballard Street ,” which is one that some folks tell me is “growing on them.” Now I wonder if anyone would miss the new “ Ballard Street ,” with its weird suburbanite characters, if we put “Dennis” back in its place.
Who knows: Maybe something new can create loyalty that rivals something old. Just look at what's happening on the Web. Maybe there's room for both.
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