The MSN homepage has multiple challenges, given that some users visit us almost every hour, but others visit once a day, a couple of times a week or even less regularly. The homepage includes 57 links or feature slots for programming — 77 for users who choose to expand the news, money, sports and entertainment modules. There's much to be seen with round-the-clock updates from our news partner, MSNBC.com, and other channels in our network.

Regardless of how often you visit our page, one of the main goals of the homepage team is to get breaking news to you with 100 percent accuracy, as quickly as possible — and to make sure the way we display major news reflects its importance. We have a new tool in our arsenal as we strive to do this: a red "breaking news" banner. You may have noticed it recently on political stories (for example, John McCain winning the Florida Republican primary) and on fast-breaking stories like the sudden death of actor Heath Ledger.

January was a particularly busy news month. We've received a few letters about how we're using the banner, which is a signal that maybe it's time to explain why and how it fits into our homepage programming plan.

Alerts banners such as ours are increasingly common on news Web sites. Our news partner, MSNBC.com, posts them with different colors used for different levels of news. It's the Web equivalent of a TV anchor cluing people in to something new and worth noting.

On MSN, our editors use the red banner to denote immediacy and import. And a banner often can be added to the page faster than a story can be written and posted. MSN.com's Dave Herman, the senior editor charged with daily updates, notes the benefits for homepage readers.

"Stories sometimes take a few minutes to come along after you've gotten that initial news flash," Herman said. "But once we've confirmed the facts of a breaking story, we can use the banner to let users know that we know what's going on, we're on it, and that they can check back for more details the second we have them."

Ledger's tragic death at age 28 was one such instance.

 "What a terrible story," Herman said. "But there was so much interest for our users. It took a few minutes before we had a story to link to. But the banner helped us bring this shocking news to our users right away and to convey the magnitude of such a sudden, tragic death."

Sometimes the red news alert is used only for a few minutes, until the main story and its headline can be updated. Its position above the main photo spot then stands out to users, whether they visit the homepage several times a day or less frequently.

In the case of Ledger's death, the alert-as-announcement remained on the page while a fuller story was developed — and as our editors prepared to rearrange stories on the page to allow for a photo and the forthcoming story.

A few of our users thought that using the red alert for Ledger's death was unnecessary in light of other major news of the day (sinking stock market, Oscar nominations, suspected terrorist Jose Padilla's conviction). But that conflux of news, marked by the surprise of the young actor's death, accounted for our busiest day ever — surpassing our previous record set in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting.

The Ledger story clearly touched many people.

Everyone — journalists and users alike — may differ in their opinions of which stories merit "red alert" treatment. It's an inexact science, and we're working to better understand the needs of our users each day.

You won't see us using the red alert strip as frequently as some Web sites, but its appearance should remind you that we're vigilant in staying on top of developing news that matters to many of you.