Check out these figures!

SooToday.com is fast approaching the fifth anniversary of our launch as an online news operation in January, 2002.

The web site was actually around for more than a year before that, beginning in September, 2000 as SooCoupons.com.

Our readership has climbed relentlessly over our six-year history, and we thought our readers might appreciate an update on how far we've come. Here, as of early December, is SooToday.com by the numbers, as measured by Urchin Analysis:

- active registered users = 20,228 - average visits a day = 44,676 - average length of visit = 8 mins, 35 secs - average pages read per visit = 17 - average classified ads posted daily = +300 - total classified ads posted = 234,250 - average editorial postings daily = +250 - total editorial postings = 165,865 - total news, sports stories = 21,332 Regular readers know the power of SooToday.com's immense and diverse readership.

In November 2003, our readers helped local model Tertia Lamb win the national Estee Lauder Flare Magazine Beautiful Model Search Contest.

In recent days, we've also helped boost Tertia to the top spot in the national Guess Faces to Watch Model Search.

Tertia had four votes when we posted our first reader appeal. At time of writing on Wednesday morning, she's approaching 6,000 votes.

Here's a recent working week on SooToday.com - Monday Nov. 12 - 47,295 visits - Tuesday Nov. 13 - 48,376 visits - Wednesday Nov. 14 - 46,284 visits - Thursday Nov. 15 - 46,887 visits - Friday Nov. 16 - 42,774 visits

SooToday.com is a free service supported by local merchants and institutions, and we encourage our readers to visit sponsor links on our site to keep this website a free service.

Our news staff has been recognized with national and international awards and citations from entities including the Governor-General of Canada, Canadian Association of Journalists, Canadian Association of Broadcasters, Canadian Community Newspapers Association, Radio-Television News Directors Association of Canada and the U.S. Free Press Association.

Isn't it time you made SooToday.com your home page? Just click here and we'll make sure you're never out of the loop on all the news from your hometown.

For information on advertising your business on SooToday.com, please call Paul or Rob at (705)759-3266 or email us at [email protected]