Interactive features such as Polls, Message Boards, Personals, and Chat give Orlandoans several more reasons to bookmark a site that should inspire other weekly newspaper publishers and managers to greater aspirations online. We also like the variety of searches users can perform on the newspaper's directories. Users can search databases of CW Movie reviews and descriptions, Clubs, and Restaurants, including archives of the paper's Chef Profiles. A helpful City Hall section lists contact information for municipalities, as well as meeting times and links to municipal sites. The CW Archives are among the best we have seen.
Readers are welcome to participate, as well, through a general discussion forum.
All of these efforts appear to be paying off judging by the number of Tile Ads on the site. As for the design, we don't particularly like Frames, but the Coast Weekly has managed to use them without interfering with the user's navigation or enjoyment of the site. Amazingly, all of the interior pages fit inside the target frame. This is a site that Monterrey County residents and visitors will find useful time and again.