About ten years ago, I attended the Student Journalism Institute at the University of Florida. The year I went, the Internet was being introduced as a means of researching information for articles, etc. Other than being completely overwhelmed with the prospect of a wealth of information at my fingertips, my initial thought was, "What does the Internet have to do with newsprint?" It was even stated by institute instructors at that event that the computer would never replace the Sunday paper as it would always be easier to carry the funnies into the restroom rather than a laptop.

Over the course of the past decade, it has remained true that computers haven't overtaken newsprint, but an interesting occurrence has taken place: computer activities have complemented papers, weeklies and dailies alike, in the form of blogs, electronic photo galleries.

The Gulf Breeze News web page is wildly popular, receiving nearly one million hits each month, and drawing readers from all over the world. The Gulf Breeze News web page puts our news and our "names" out there for all the world to see. Google searching any topic related to our community usually links the readers to our articles.

OK, I'm going to admit something. I Google myself, too. About every month or so, I check my name to make sure I'm fulfilling the needs of readers with my articles. Who am I kidding? I want to see if people are talking trash about me. Turns out, some of my articles have appeared in blogs in the depths of cyberspace. This further dissemination of information is another facet of computers extending the reach of our community paper. We are happy to do everything we can to inform the Gulf Breeze market, from paper to TV and web.