As we explore the new potential that Web publishing offers, we are learning that a big benefit of an online presence comes from expanding ways for the newspaper and its readers to interact with each other.

Such interaction has long been important in the print publication. The newspaper prizes letters to the editor, for instance, as much as our readers do. They give a voice to the community on matters of public interest as well as on the performance of the newspaper itself.

Editorials, local Op-Ed pieces and staff columns are other devices for the newspaper to hear from and explain itself to readers.

Now we can take advantage of Internet technology to make these written conversations more immediate, with more content and to open them to more people.

So as we continue to expand dailygazette.com, some of our first steps have been to offer more opportunities for interaction. Today we begin offering our Opinion section on dailygazette.com and with that comes a new convenience for writers to submit letters, and a chance for the paper to display more letters than we can print in the paper.

Daily editorials

Editorials, which argue the newspaper’s point of view, will appear daily and remain available on the Web site for one week. Letters to the editor will also appear on dailygazette.com. And since the electronic page doesn’t have the space restrictions the print version does, we will be able to offer letters that otherwise would not be published. The newspaper often receives more good letters than it can print, so it’s great to be able to bring a larger selection to our Web readers.

Locally written opinion columns will also appear on dailygazette.com.

We recently introduced blogs to our Web site and we will continue to add to our selection. Within the week, Gazette columnist Carl Strock will launch a blog. And as we move forward with the site, we will build a community of non-staff bloggers as well.

These electronic columns offer writers the chance to touch base with readers in a casual way, or in the more structured, careful style of a print column. We hope they will be a place where readers add comments and questions, and feed a more conversational relationship between the blogger and readers.

The blogs by sports writers Phil Janack and Ken Schott, feature writer Jeff Wilkin and non-staff contributor Bob Cudmore have gotten off to a good start. (So did arts writer Philip Schwartz’s blog, but he has now moved to another publication so, alas, it will no longer appear.)

The topics are lively and update frequently. The blogs have begun to cultivate followings and the number of comments is growing. We’d encourage even more comments. They make the form come alive.

Letters and blogs aren’t the only ways readers can share their thoughts with us and other readers. Each story that appears on dailygazette.com is followed by a comment box. Registered readers may post their thoughts, which will then appear along with other comments at the end of the story. (Registration is easy. Just click on the button located at the top left of the Web screen that says “register” and follow instructions. Once you are a registered user you will be able to post comments, customize the school closings information and set up electronic alerts.)

And, from the start, we offered regular polls that allowed readers to weigh in on questions weighty and whimsical, then monitor how their views stack up with fellow readers. The polls, of course, are not scientific and we don’t view them as significant research — just a fun way for folks to be counted.

The winner is . . .

And speaking of polls, we just completed Round 2 of the comic survey, in which we asked readers’ opinions on selected comics to add to our print edition’s comics page and which one to replace. Round 1 resulted in a clear choice for replacement: Gasoline Alley. Arctic Circle easily won the choice of which of two strips to add. But because many readers wanted to see other options, we sampled two more strips over the last three weeks.

Rhymes With Orange won the second round but received fewer than half the votes tallied by Arctic Circle (157, compared with 405). So, we will replace Gasoline Alley with Arctic Circle in our daily comics beginning March 10.

Thanks to all who participated in our survey both on-line and through the mail.