"The yardstick we use to measure the site's rate of use is the number of visitors at each local site," Collet said. "We've been matching the kind of traffic the local papers get [at the other five sites] and as of now [Yahoo is] basically the most popular site next to Netscape in use."

Collet and Pierce said Yahoo's primary local competition will be boston.com, a site designed and serviced by The Boston Globe with powerful news and graphics resources.

While Yahoo lacks the news links of boston.com, the company has established media connections with local news, radio and sports affiliates which will provide the site with up-to-date local news on-line.

The site will rely on news and features form WBZ-TV News 4 New England and sports updates from ESPN Sportsticker.

Designers said the site's emphasis on local news and information will be an innovative edge in the often-impersonal world of World Wide Web design.

"As you settle into life on-line, you want information that's relevant in your day to day affairs: news, weather, arts and entertainment, all the local information you need," Collet said. "Our goal is to make life on-line more relevant to people in their daily lives."

Students designed the Yahoo site as part of a project for Associate Professor of Business Administration Marco Iansiti's class, "Managing New Product Development."

The site will be available for the general public to surf and explore today at the Cybersmith cafe from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m