Related information: A sampling of other religion's Web sites

By Steve Fidel
Deseret News staff writer

You won't find newspaper carriers riding their bikes down the sidewalks of cities in Argentina, Greece and Malaysia throwing copies of the Deseret News to subscribers there. But the paper does have readers in those places and many others around the globe thanks to the Internet.
A portion of the international interest in news from Utah stems from the fact that the world headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is here.
The Deseret News began publishing news of the church's annual general conference electronically in its World Wide Web edition one year ago. Conference stories in the Web edition http://www.desnews.com/ reflected the coverage available to readerdesnewss of the print edition. E-mail sent to the Deseret News from visitors to the Web edition showed readers were interested in the coverage and wanted more.
When the church held its next general conference in October, the News' Web edition coverage of conference was expanded to include full text of all addresses given by church leaders at the conference — something there isn't room for in the print edition.
On the day after that conference ended, readers from around the United States and at least 30 foreign countries tapped into the Deseret News' conference coverage on the Web.
Church members, some of them living in parts of the world where radio or television broadcasts of the church's conference sessions are not available, sent e-mail to the News to tell how the Internet had brought conference to them.
In the general conference that begins today, Deseret News Web edition coverage is expanded once again.
Full texts of October's conference addresses are still available. A recent count showed those talks are still being read several hundred times each day. Visitors to the Web site can also take an illustrated tour of Temple Square — a feature exclusive to the Deseret News Web edition. Pictures and biographical information about all of the church's general authorities and general officers can be viewed. Conference-related feature stories are available. Stories and pictures from the print edition will be online, and full texts of the conference addresses will be added to the site as soon as the texts are made available by the church. It is anticipated the News will begin posting the complete text of conference addresses beginning Tuesday with postings continuing probably through Thursday.