For those with access to the Internet, the Gazette address is http://www.vineyard.net/biz/gazette.

 

Visitors to the Gazette web site can take a virtual tour of the paper’s departments and learn about its history. There is a message from the paper’s publishers, Richard Reston and Mary Jo Reston. Visitors to the site can gain information on how to subscribe or  contact the paper via e-mail. There is also a catalogue of Vineyard Gazette products.

 

Over the last year, newspapers around the world have established web sites on the Internet. Their pages vary in sophistication. They include daily newspapers such as The Boston Globe and The New York Times with hourly news updates. Other newspapers, mostly weeklies, are less ambitious.

 

Mr. Reston said the new web site is part of the paper’s efforts to have a presence on the Internet. It is not entirely clear how the Internet will evolve as a news service. Last fall, the Gazette established an Internet e-mail address: gazette@vineyard.net. Mr. Reston said the response to the e-mail address has been fairly good.

 

This is not a first step for the Gazette into global communications. For years, the paper has been received by subscribers in all 50 states and in more than 20 foreign countries.

 

The Gazette web page resides in a computer server in Vineyard Haven. The Gazette is using Vineyard.net as its Internet provider, a company that went public last summer. Internet access was first offered as a service to the community more than a year ago by The Internet Access Company out of Bedford. Between the two Internet providers, a number of Island businesses and public service organizations already have web sites.

 

Simson Garfinkel, president of Vineyard.net, said he welcomes the Vineyard Gazette presence: “We’ve discovered a lot of people want to put information about Martha’s Vineyard on the Internet. It is much cheaper to communicate on the Internet. And people are reading that information from off-Island. It eliminates the cost of a long-distance telephone call. It uses telecommunication lines more efficiently than alternatives.”

 

In just the last year a number of publications, including a variety of magazines, have set up home pages on the Internet. “The future of newspapers on the Internet is an open question,” Mr. Garfinkel said.

 

 

From the March 8, 1996 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

 

Your newspaper should be congratulated for initiating the Internet program. The next century is fast approaching with many technological advances which will provide us with data-intensive facilities.

 

Our family looks forward to visiting your Internet facility in the near future.

 

Dolores A. Burkhardt

Frederick R. Burkhardt

 

Vineyard Haven and

Southington, Conn.

 

 

From the July 21, 1995 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

The Vineyard Gazette accepted its first letter to the editor via the Internet last Friday. The letter was written by James J. Decoulos of Peabody. He wrote of his concerns about the closing of the Menemsha Coast Guard station planned for Sept. 30.

 

The letter made its way to the Gazette office electronically, first arriving as E-mail at home of journalist Mark Alan Lovewell. It was then transferred by computer disk to the editorial office where it was sent on its way to the editorial page.