Several people of have sent me emails the past couple weeks alerting me to the appearance of a new, online-only "newspaper" that has launched at www.tacomasun.com.

Morgan Alexander, Andrew Austin and Erik Bjornson are listed as the editors of the publication. Andrew began blogging for us about transit issues last year, while Erik "pens" the Tacoma Urbanist blog, which I wrote about last month.

It's curious to note that this upstart publication aims to be a "newspaper" and not something that sounds more digital. Working for a legacy print newspaper, I hear more and more from people in our company who are trying to go the other way, to stop talking about "paper" and focus on "news."

The Tacoma Sun appears to focus on issues and advocacy as much as, if not more than, news. It's a model that resembles the newspapers published in the earlier part of the 20th century (when every town and city had numerous newspapers).

The purpose of the Tacoma Sun will be to attempt to explore the methods in which Tacoma can continue to rebuild the physical and social structures to place the city on a path toward reaching its potential.

How does it differ from a blog, especially considering the site is built on blog software? I'm not sure, and I'm not sure that it matters. It's part of the evolution of news and information in the digital age. Blog? Newspaper? Newspaper blog? The label is less important than the information, the interactivity and the community that forms around it.

Welcome to the neighborhood, Tacoma Sun.