We at the weekly Times newspapers are pleased to announce the  launch of our new community website - zip06.

This site will give you a new way to interact with neighbors and friends across all the communities of southeastern Connecticut.

We've called it zip06 because we want to connect everyone in our part of Connecticut - the 06 state.

Part of the goal for zip06 is to provide you greater access to your local town information -- news from your town's Times newspaper, for example, and the latest town news from theday.com.

But more importantly, zip06 will give you a way to actively contribute information about your town, your organizations, and your life.  What does that mean?

Well, zip06 will let you and your friends and your schools and your clubs create all kinds of great ways to share what's going on around here:

• You can set up and maintain your own member blog and photo gallery so people can see what you or your school or club are up to.
• You can join discussion forums about important local topics - like that pot-hole down your street or life on the Sound.
• You can list your group's events on a region-wide events calendar.
• You can interact with other community members  by posting comments about anything that others contribute.

And you'll be able to designate other people as "friends" so they'll be notified when you contribute new content to the site - and you'll be notified when they do as well!

And here's one more neat feature:  those who contribute to  zip06 will start seeing some of their content published in the print editions of The Times newspapers. That's right -- each week our editors will review what zip06 members have contributed online to find things that are timely and relevant to feature in our weekly newspapers - and maybe even find a good story for follow-up by a staff writer.   What you contribute online could go out to everyone in town - even people who don't use our website.

Ultimately,  zip06 will become what you decide it will be by the things you contribute. Our goal is simple:  we want  zip06 to grow dynamically so we can link together all of us who live, work and play around here.   

It's the website for your town, your school, your club -- your life!   Thanks.

Derek Anderson
Director of Interactive Media
d.anderson@theday.com
860-701-4465