By Don Richeson

Published: April 24, 2008

If you haven’t checked out our Web site lately --www.madison-news.com—now is a good time to do so.

It received a major revamp late last month and now has all sorts of new bells and whistles.

With any such roll-out, there’s bound to be a wrinkle or two. That’s why I held off announcing the upgrade for a bit, to get most of these ironed-out.

There are still a few things about it that need some work, but I think you’ll find it has some sharp features many of you Internet surfers out there will find “gnarly.” Not gnarly like unpleasant or disgusting, but gnarly like remarkable and outstanding, as in, “Dude, those waves are gnarly!” (I’m trying to get the most mileage I can out of the surfing metaphor, but realized after a dictionary check that gnarly is a slang word that can be used to mean opposite things.)

With our new Web site, we can now post more easily many more photos, stories and other items than before and do so more frequently. These end up in a searchable archive – something we lacked before.

There is also a way for folks to post comments after stories in response to them – and in response to comments by other readers. The Web site is more “interactive.”

The Internet isn’t “replacing” newspapers, but it’s emerging as sort of an adjunct to the print side of things. The idea is to make news available in whatever format people want. Video clips, Podcasts, you name it.

Some predictors of the future had foreseen a time when electronic newspaper tablets might replace traditional ink-on-print newspapers. Such devices have been around, at least in experimental form, for at least 20 years.

In the 2002 Tom Cruise science-fiction film “Minority Report” commuters traveling on a train in 2054 use them, watching them automatically update their “front page” as a big news event progresses. I even saw one version recently that was made of a sort of a rubbery material that you could roll up and carry in your pocket.

But then there were the folks who said the rise of office computers would make the use of paper in offices obsolete, yet offices now use more paper than ever, as workers make oodles of print-outs of on-line documents.

Papers will continue to exist for the foreseeable future. People aren’t being denied ways to get the news they need – just given more choices as the new blends with the old, not supplants it.

It’s like soda. There was once just Coke; now it shares the store shelves with Diet Coke, Coke Zero, caffeine-free Coke, Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, Coke with Lime … and on it goes.

Pet peeve time concerning our Web site. I wish we could get rid of that hyphen symbol in our Web site address. It confuses everyone. When many see it in print, they think it’s just there because the entire address couldn’t fit in one newspaper column and it’s there to let readers know it’s continued on the next line. So, they don’t type it in (the hyphen) when they go on the Web.

Or, many confuse it with an underscore symbol and type that by mistake. Or, they type the whole paper name and it takes them to The Eagle – the one in Madison, N.J. — rather than us here in ’ol Virginny.

If I had a dime for every call I’ve taken here explaining that darned hyphen in our Web site and e-mail addresses I’d now be challenging Warren Buffet for the top spot on Forbes magazine’s richest people list.

So, remember to watch out for that ’ol hyphen and take our new Web site for a test drive, kick the tires a bit and let us know what you think. There will undoubtedly be other technological innovations coming as The Eagle, founded 98 years ago, continues to move toward its second century of existence and well beyond.

But in whatever form you receive it, as always its focus will be all things of and related to Madison County.

(Don Richeson is editor of The Madison County Eagle. Call him at [540] 948-5121, fax him at [540] 948-3045 or contact him via e-mail at
.)