The Clinton County News has something new to offer to its loyal readers and advertisers.

Begtinning this Friday, February 4, 2011, the online edition will have a new look.

Getting to the website will be the same, www.clintonnews.net, but the site itself has undergone a complete turnaround.

The new site will feature many more aspects of the print edition, including obituaries, classified ads, and a “What’s Happening” box that will post up-to-date tid bits of news, weather and sports information pertaining to Clinton County.

The new website came about after the Clinton County News Publisher/Editor Alan Gibson and staff photographer/reporter Brett Gibson attended a computer software workshop in Bowling Green, Kentucky, sponsored by the Kentucky Press Association.

At the workshop, Russell Viers, who is a certified Adobe instructor, told the class about a new product he was introducing … Atomic News Tools.

Atomic News Tools works with the software Viers was teaching in the workshop, which is the same program the Clinton County News and many other newspapers use across the world to put their publication together.

After a brief description of the new product and examples of how the product looks and works, Viers went on with his workshop.

After both Gibsons returned from the workshop, the research began on the new product used to host websites.

Nearly a month later, Viers was contacted and the first steps of putting the website together were complete. During the past month, Clinton County News employees have been working to add the content of the online edition.

Advertising has been sold, stories have been posted and the final work has been done in order to bring the site to the world wide web on February 4, 2011.

As mentioned earlier in this article, getting to the site is easy and the same as it’s always been.

Log on to www.clintonnews.net and see all the many changes that have taken place.

As of right now, the website will be free to the public. The NEWS wants to supply its readers with a chance to explore the entire site and see what all it can offer as an online edition. In the future, the website will be accessible through a subscription, much like our print edition.

There are several different pages that will hold different types of information that is valuable to the public.

The normal items will be posted to the site such as Things-To-Do, weddings, birth announcements, death notices, sports stories and photos, as well as the “hard news” that appears on the front page of the print edition.

In addition to the regular information, the website will also have a “Reader’s Write” page as well as an “Outdoors” page.

During hunting seasons, hunters can bring in a picture or choose to have it made at the Clinton County News to show off their harvest. Those photos will remain in the website’s database in order to be archived.

The website will archive everything in order to make it more accessible to the public. If there was a story written several months ago, all you have to do is log on to the website and search for the particular story you want to read.

Another aspect readers will be able access is the online advertising. Many local businesses have websites and their ad will be linked to their site. For those who don’t have a web page, an ad can be linked to a portable document format file, or “PDF” and it will pull up another ad with more information about the business.

Have you ever seen a photo in the newspaper and would like to own a copy of that photo? Well now you can! There will be a link on the sports page that will direct people to a website where photo reprints can be purchased. The photos offered will only be photos taken by the Clinton County News staff.

Other significant aspects to the new website, is a link to the current “Slam Dunk Contest.” There will be a box located on one of the online edition’s pages that will pull up a copy of the contest. Print it off and deliver it to the Clinton County News office before Friday of that week to enter your contest for a chance to win a $30 gift certificate to IGA or a one-year subscription to the Clinton County News.

Among other links is a link to the Clinton County News Facebook page.

On the Facebook page, news, weather and sports updates will be posted as they happen, which makes it a great way to keep in touch and offer feedback to the NEWS staff.

With this article, the Clinton County News proudly offers a new way to stay up-to-date with what’s happening in Clinton County. Log on and explore all the possibilities it has to offer.