The Web site YubaNet.com covers the Sierra in a much different way than The Bee, delivering a decidedly local view through original reporting and citizen posts.
For instance, YubaNet has a tab for fire news and a “Sierra NightSky” report. The site serves its readers in some ways The Bee never will, and vice versa.
Beginning this week, sacbee.com and YubaNet will be linked – not just by a single reference or story, but through The Bee’s new network for connecting coverage from an increasingly lively mix of online sources.
The network, called Sacramento Connect, is simple in concept. It links the best of the Web for readers in the Sacramento area and more broadly in Northern California – sites and blogs you might not otherwise find.
It also provides a simple toolbar to connect the network and to make it easy to share stories via Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites.
Like many online tools, Sacramento Connect is easier to comprehend when you’re using it than when you’re reading about it. That’s why I want to talk more about why we’ve developed the network than how it works technically.
From my view, Sacramento Connect is a contemporary way to carry out some familiar aims of a newspaper: Pointing readers to interesting and useful information and connecting people to community life.
We began talking about a Bee-hosted network last spring, inspired by the continuing explosion of blogs and Web sites offering specialized news and opinion, citizen journalism or creative storytelling.
These sites are both competitors and friends, and from our experience mostly the latter.
We looked at some experiments elsewhere involving newspaper sites and local blogs and got help and coaching at a Knight Digital Media Center session for newspapers on social media strategy.
Sacramento Connect’s true breakthroughs came, however, through conversations with local bloggers who quickly saw the potential and offered advice and suggestions.
For The Bee and its partners, the network adds content and supports advertising goals. We think sacbee.com readers will like Sacramento Connect and the toolbar, for both finding and sharing articles and photos, and we’ll sell advertising on The Bee’s part of the network.
Our partners also gain by connecting to sacbee.com’s audience – the largest in the region – in regular ways that promise to boost their readership and advertising.
We’re starting small by intention, with fewer than two dozen partner sites whose content will be linked and featured. There’s a link for blogs and sites to apply to be part of the network (there’s no fee), and another to recommend sites, from solo blogs to community news operations, and we expect to build steadily.
The network might have some startup pains, so we’ll take it slow until we work out the bugs.
I’m excited most by the potential of this network for linking community-minded sites (geographic communities or interest communities) not just with The Bee, but with one another.
Some of our partners might be familiar to you, depending on your interests. On SacFoodies.com, for instance, locals explore and delight in the area’s culinary scene. At PublicCEO.com, daily posts address the interests and concerns of people in government, including executives and administrators.
You can find the network and toolbar, which will appear at the bottom of the screen, beginning Monday at sacbee.com and on partner sites.