WLUC's Website, uppermmichiganssource.com, hit a new milestone in January:  two million page views for the month.

In December, we had fallen short by only 8,000 page views.

What's remarkable about those numbers is the growth over the last six years of the Website.  In 2005, for example, an average month pulled in only about 300,000 page views.

There are several reasons for the explosive growth, and the first has to be the simple fact that more and more of us are getting our news and information from the Web.  Young people are leading the way, but older folks are falling into line as well.

Our TV news ratings still remain extremely high--our Early News and Morning News are among the highest rated news programs in the nation, and Fox UP Prime News has shown exponential growth--but increasingly people want their news when they want it, whether that's at 2 a.m., 1 p.m., or 9 p.m., and they want it free, and they want it updated to the moment.

That's what the Internet provides.

But there's something else happening at uppermichiganssource.com.  It's become a Website that's truly interactive.  It belongs to the people.  Our "Comments" section has been controversial, and we'll admit we're not happy with all the comments that are made, and we delete the most offensive ones as soon we're made aware of them.  But the fact is, people like to comment on news stories and they like to comment on other readers' comments.

Not only that, but our Yooper Tube section is fed by individual contributors, and in many cases, citizen journalists. I n the recent Big Powderhorn fire, our news coverage for the first five hours was populated almost exclusively by contributions from citizen journalists.  Remarkable!

These trends almost certainly will continue.  We will continue to devote more and more of our resources to our Website, and we hope you, the readers and contributors, will help us out.

For now, we'd like to hear from you.  What else do we need to do to improve uppermichiganssource.com?  We know we still have a long way to go, and we welcome any serious criticism and guidance.

Please offer those suggestions in the "Comments" section below.