Best of luck in Las Vegas!!!

The circulation is down at every major newspaper in the country. Most of that is due to the boom of the internet. Many newspapers (the Gazette included I think) are taking steps to move into the Internet age; as well as keep regular hard copy readers.
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I know that when the Milwaukee Journal went public, many of their employees got burned buying into the stock; as it's down something like 60% since it went public (there is a recent story in their paper about that). All the major US newspapers (or their parent companies); NY times, LA Times, Chi Tribune, USA Today have been hammered pretty good the last 4-5 years.

The online format and focus on local content is excellent. As the Gazette already knows, I can get my world news from many other sources. Unfortunately (or not), I find myself checking the gazette way too often;)

I would imagine that moderating the comments might get more difficult as your readership grows. Keep up the good work! Please don't ever devolve into a gawker blog.

The Gazette was, like so many other daily papers, having problems with circulation, and this drove the changes we see today. And I realize there had to have been a tremendous amount of time and effort that went into this change. But I would bet that circulation is still a serious concern. I know the Gazette is less important to me anyway. Had you instead added detail rather than simplifying news items, you would have added importance and relevancy as well. I look for depth in stories, not sound-bites, especially in world news. I realize that with so many stories to cover, this is difficult too. Yet, this is what I am looking for.

delivery problems seem to be at the heart of The Janesville Gazette's circulation problems.

Granted, the delivery staff is generally 12-17 year old kids that do not have a vested interest in keeping the customer satisfied, it is disheartening that more and more folks are just buying it from the newsstand rather than subscribing.

I remember "back in the day" when my grandfather and father called the gazette the "fish wrap" because they would fish all summer and wrap their plentiful catch in newspaper prior to ME filleting and freezing their big catch.

The Janesville Gazette has made huge strides since those days to give accurate, timely news to the people of Janesville and the surrounding communities.

My suggestion is to increase training to the delivery carriers and stress the importance of customers receiving DRY, well-placed papers without damaging siding, screen doors or gardens in the process.

I used to get the paper. Had piss poor delivery, paper left on driveway as opposed to porch steps, etc. I find it much cheaper and more convenient to read online than physical paper.

Perhaps, many feel the same and thus could also play a factor in the Gazette's online increased traffic.

Living in the Las Vegas area, we read the reviewjournal.com and gazettextra.com.
The Gazette has a far nicer online format. Keep up the good work!

LMAO...have you seen how brutal the comments can be? Why would he subject himself to that torture? IMO, Mr. Angus does a fine job of granting the public a genuine mix of compassion and news. Keep up the good work.

I enjoy reading the Gazette Extra and commenting on line. Why don't you allow your readers to post comments about your daily editorial?

Yes, congratulations on the nomination and good luck with winning the EPpy.

Despite all the frictions here, I respect everyone for taking the time and effort to express their thoughts with the written word.

With almost none of the pitfalls of in-person conversation, this site is probably the nearest thing possible to perfect communcation.

Congratulations and best of luck with the EPpy award! You have an outstanding web site, which gives the public a two-fer, because your print edition is outstanding also. As I’ve noted before, people who’ve always lived in Janesville don’t know how good they have it. The Gazette is head-and-shoulders above most other papers in this size market.
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One small suggestion. Some news items have very “perishable” information, like “Tornado Watch Until 4pm”, or stories that quickly became overcome by events when you post an updated story a couple of hours later. But the old story is still listed under “Latest News”. Please consider removing the old story from “Latest News”, and if you do incorporate links to old stories, add one to the new story.
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Again, thanks for such great print and virtual products. If only these blogs weren’t so darn addictive . . .

Congratulation indeed on the success. I try to stay up to date on news of my home town, and I have really appreciated the progress you made with Gazettextra. Tom Bolton

I think adding functionality that would allow "rating" other comments is an excellent idea. Sometimes the shear number of comments posted about a story is overwhelming to the point that I don't read any of them.
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A rating system might help differentiate the well-reasoned, thoughtful comments from the snotty, caustic and/or inflammatory comments.

It is nice to have local news as part of our discussion/comments.

Good luck with the EPpy Award. It is obvious that The Janesville Gazette is working to reach more people and provide us with accurate and timely news (although some will still complain that the news isn't fast enough).

Keep up the good work and I look forward to the site improvements and enhancements.

Congrats on the progress. It seems like a long time since the initial shock of web launch. It is even more remarkable that at the same time of the new press and new physical facility and look of the physical paper that you would launch the virtual--and succeed in such fashion.

Things I would like to see---tansparent circulation--make your sitemeter available to the public--newspapers have "reported" circulation for eons, but the new fashion is to have it transparent..
....Archive more---the physical paper is trashed each night, but some of the content the public is still searching for years later---it is true that this makes errors more glaring, but it makes the virtual Gazette a cultural history as well as daily. ....Maybe let the reader tell you what they want to have archived.

Begin an advertising pricing formula that encorporates web traffic....

Consider front end moderation for comments---after the wild west days of virtual are over, the comments section has to adjust to less trash talking and more thoughtful stuff.

Again. Congrats. on the progress.

The Evansville Observer

I have a suggestion also.
Set up separate chat-rooms, because that is what most of these "comment" sections have devolved into.

Good to hear that your on-line/Gazette extra site is taking off. The increasing traffic, and attracting more regular viewers, should help ad to your advertising success on-line; as most on-line advertisers look at all those numbers that you detailed.

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One suggestion I would make is that you really need to upgrade this "blog/message" portion (like the part I am writing on here). Right now it is EXTREMELY limiting, and basic. Most sites you can do things like:

* Use a "..." feature to respond to someone else's point without having others guess who you were commenting to with so much other clutter that is often added to the board after you made a comment.
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*Be able to make words/sentences in bold or italic.
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*Be able to use icons to express emotions in a post
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* Be able to rate others posts
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All of those features are fairly common on most boards, and should help enhance your sites quality, and increase the enjoyability of those who use it.