When a stampede broke out at a stadium in Pasig City, a mudslide swallowed a farming village in Southern Leyte, and a state of national emergency was declared in February, not only did the Sun.Star website strove to provide visitors with timely updates, it also gave them a venue to air their views on these events.

Special sections devoted to coverage in text and photos of February’s major developments were put up to answer the need of www.sunstar.com.ph readers for prompt and accurate information.

Each section came with a message board that allowed visitors to express grief and anger over the tragedies in Pasig and Leyte and approbation or criticism of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s state of emergency.

The improved coverage had positive results for the website, as it broke in February past site statistic records.

Website unique visitors in February reached a high of 1,357,429. This was an increase of 174,410 from last year’s highest count of 1,183,019 in October.February traditionally had the lowest traffic for the Sun.Star website because of the month’s fewer days.

Nevertheless, website pages accessed by visitors reached a high of 11,098,323 while the number of hits—which count all components of a page accessed by a reader like text, graphics, and photos—soared to 34,856,190 last month.

Last year, the highest number of page views was at 10,715,504 and hits at 30,698,619 in October.

January 2006 site statistics also did not disappoint. The website then did a blow-by-blow coverage of Filipino boxer Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao’s triumph over Mexican boxing legend Erik “El Terrible” Morales at the Thomas & Mack Arena in Las Vegas.

Unique visitors to the website for that month were also at a high of 1,340,937, just 16,000 less than February’s record. Page views stood at 11,309,823 and hits at 34,582,825.

Creating a special page complete with message board for major happenings in the country was just among the innovations thought of by the editorial and technical staff of the Sun.Star Network Exchange (Sunnex), the department that runs the Sun.Star website, to cater to the demand of visitors for comprehensive updates.

Sunnex celebrates its seventh anniversary today, April 5. It has continued to play a pivotal role in shaping Sun.Star’s online directions through various innovations like the message boards, which allow visitors to react to developments as they happen and provide greater interactivity between the website and its audience.

Like its citizen blogs, which encourage website readers to become active collaborators in the shaping and writing of the news, the website message boards are also a source of content for other Sun.Star media platforms.

The best views are culled regularly and sent to the different Sun.Star newspapers for publication in their opinion pages.

Through its forums, the website provides a venue for visitors to convene as a community. The forums allow Filipinos in any part of the world to talk about various issues with one another.

Other features that have attracted visitors to the website are the web specials on light topics like love, graduation, kids, youth and festivals.

In the festivals pages, readers are encouraged to post their experiences while attending fiestas like the Sinulog, Dinagyang, and Panagbenga.

Aside from the favorable response of visitors to its various offerings, Sun.Star website efforts are also getting recognized.

Netcraft.com, an Internet services company based in Bath, England, continues to name the website as the most-visited Filipino news site. Netcraft is a company that tracks technology on the Internet.

This year, the website is lining up more features to add to its existing offerings. Among them are blogs on travel, kids and youth.

The kids blog will provide relevant, child-friendly content, while the youth blog will allow teenagers to speak their minds and share creative works.Other projects are also being considered.

From being an online complement to the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper in 1999, the website has taken on a whole new identity as www.sunstar.com.ph, the Internet home of the Sun.Star network of local newspapers.