The Hudson Independent’s newly renovated website, a comprehensive, revitalized resource for the community, has just been unveiled on July 1. This new Internet information source will include updated local news, event listings, and video and photos from both the newspaper’s staff and its readers. With its interactive capabilities, the site will allow readers to comment on local stories, address Letters-to-the-Editor and upload their videos and photos. It will also allow self-uploaded classified ads.

Additional information associated with a story for which the newspaper might not have space will be available for visitors to the web. For example, the story in this issue about the two student Hall of Fame Essay Contest winners could not include their essays. However, the complete text of both essays will be available on the website.

If viewers register on the site, they will also be eligible to receive occasional alerts about news updates, neighborhood happenings, or rivertown events. The site retains the paper’s former web address: http://www.thehudsonindependent.com

“With links to many other community institutions, organizations and village governments, as well as its own stories, the website provides an excellent starting point to learn the latest about what is happening in all aspects of life in our villages,” The Hudson Independent’s Website Manager Rani Levy said.

As a site designed to draw many viewers, it is an exceptional location for both classified and regular advertising, according to Advertising Director Suzanne Stephans.

Readers will be able to post and pay for their own classified ads directly online, she added. “I expect it to be a focal point for a variety of local classified ads at moderate cost,” she said. “Purchasers of items are more receptive to an ad if they know they are dealing with a local seller. “So far, even before its launch, response to the self-posted classified concept has been excellent.”

The newspaper’s website will also host occasional special contests. This month’s website will include a photo contest on summer fun whereby photos submitted for posting on the site will be judged by our editorial board and photographers. The winner will receive dining certificates worth $100 for meals at Tarrytown’s Bistro Z.

Navigation on the site is facilitated by a number of labeled links that will take visitors to specific subjects, such as “News,” “Calendar,” “Lifestyle, ”Opinion,” “Community Links,” “Photo Gallery” and “Classifieds. As an example, under “News,” stories relating to business, government, the community, obits, Police Beat, schools and sports will be found. Editorials, “Point-Counterpoint” columns and “Letters-to-the Editor” will be located under a link designated as “Opinion.”

“If the public wants to know anything about any significant local topic, “thehudsonindependent.com” will be the place to go on the Internet,” said the paper’s editor, Rick Pezzullo. “Working with news gathered by our staff and with the additional input from such local sources as neighborhood groups, schools and various civic groups and institutions, we will be hosting a vast amount of gathered information, facts and photos.”

The site’s address again is at http://www.thehudsonindependent.com. It was designed by Tarrytown resident Charles Novick of ColorArt.