Until recently, knowing for sure which types of news stories got the most readership in The Citizen was an elusive goal. Sure, we could see what was on the front page on days when single-copy sales were up, and try to determine if certain kinds of stories seemed to be popping up. But to have a true sense of just how many eyes read a specific story, we'd have to spend a lot of money on research.

With the evolution of online journalism, however, we have a new way of knowing which stories are getting the most readers. We can now see the most read headlines online within one day, one week, one month or even a year. And we get that information instantaneously.

It's a wonderful tool, and one we're trying to use to make more effective decisions about what stories to pursue and what stories to give front-page play.

An example of this effort is a couple of pieces we've done on recent Sundays related to commuters and high gas prices.

It's no secret that Cayuga County has a significant number of residents who commute outside the county to and from work each day, especially to Syracuse. From a few routine stories that we had run on issues related to the Syracuse commute, we could see that many of those residents were interested in stories affecting their daily drives.

With that in mind, our reporters in recent weeks have produced enterprise journalism about the disappearance of a federal grant aimed at studying commuter rail options between Auburn and Syracuse, as well as the trend of more people using carpooling and bus transportation to get to work as gas prices have gone up.

Both stories appear to have been widely read, so we'll be certain to look for more stories to report on this topic in the future.

Of course, we'd love to hear suggestions from commuters themselves, too.

Now for a housekeeping item:

• The popular Your Photos feature at our Web site - www.auburnpub.com - just got a makeover in order to make the viewing easier. Before, you could only view one image at a time, so you'd have to scroll through dozens of photos that you'd already seen in order to see a new one or two. Now, we have more of a gallery setup that allows the user to view multiple images at a time. Another cool feature is that people can rate the photos they see.

For those of you not familiar with the feature, Your Photos is an area on the Web site that allows readers to submit photos they'd like to share with the rest of the readership. We've had great variety, from cool vacation photos to pictures of wildlife in residents' back yards. To check it all out, click on the Your Photos button within the multimedia block at the home page, or just go to www.auburnpub.com/your_photos.

Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's columns appear Saturdays in The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net