There has been a bit of a healthy competition in the newsroom this week.

As readers of the News-Herald know, the paper has undergone a redesign of its Web site. There are some new layout changes, and some graphics that have been added. But, the really good stuff is all the new capabilities the site now has.

There is a blog feature, which all of the staff writers are in the process of developing.

There are allotted sections for breaking news.

And, there is the Suffolk Seen.

Now, we always have had Suffolk Seens in the paper. They run on the Almanac page. But, with this site, you register yourself (sort of like a MySpace or Facebook account) and you can upload pictures you have taken of your friends, family, events around town, etc.

To help bolster support for this, some of us were asked to upload some pictures so that people signing up could see some examples.

Troy Cooper, our graphic design guy, and I were picking out photos and setting up albums to go online. Troy, clearly with too much time on his hands, was the first one to publish his albums online and has since made roughly five albums. I was a little later on the scene, and have just published three.

As we would update our albums, the occasional trash talk as to whose pictures were better would invariably come up.

Now, what I did not realize at the time was that Suffolk Seen does not just display your pictures. It also keeps count of how many visitors have looked at your albums.

And, then it ranks the top 10 on the site each day.

Needless to say, the fact that I have fewer albums and was a few days behind Troy in unveiling mine have put me in a lower position than I want to be.

This has led to a change in my morning routine.

Whereas I used to come in, check my e-mails, check my voicemails and then check out some local sites and blogs for any news updates, I now head straight to our site first and calculate how many viewers I am behind Troy.

It’s stressful.

Now, far be it from me to use my weekly column as a ploy to beat my new arch nemesis, but if you happen to go to suffolknewsherald.com, and you want to see some amazing pictures of a Tim McGraw concert, a 1-year-old pit bull and the demolition derby…check out the LDub collection in Suffolk Seen.

Lauren wicks is a reporter for the Suffolk News-Herald. She can be reached at 757.934.9613 or at lauren.wicks@suffolknewsherald.com