The Scoop

When you visit sacbee.com or a couple dozen other sites and blogs in the Sacramento region next week you'll see a toolbar across the bottom of your screen with the Facebook and Twitter icons on it. Also integrated into the toolbar are a Yahoo search engine and an aggregator called LingoSpot, which will list related content based on what you are currently clicking.

Both the search engine and aggregator will focus on finding content from sacbee.com and a network of blogs and sites handpicked by Bee editors for their consistent quality. Some of the sites and blogs have been around the region for awhile and have a good number of followers. Others are just starting up or yet to attract much of a following. We think all are compelling for the timely news they provide or the interesting views they express on topics and news.  

The toolbar will appear across every page of sacbee.com as well as partner sites and blogs. Whenever you click a page, story, photo or video, the toolbar will display any related content from across a network of content-linking partners we are calling Sacramento Connect. Find any content on Sacramento Connect you want to share, you can sign on to your Facebook or Twitter accounts via the toolbar, and then you can grab any headline, text, photo or video and drag it over to the Facebook, Twitter or email icon and drop it there to add the link and send it out. Explained in a simpler way, by Sean McMahon, The Bee's digital product development manager and the person who has led The Bee on developing this toolbar, we are just trying to make it easier to do all the things online readers are already doing: searching for content they are interested in and sharing it through social media.

Sacramento Connect will launch March 29, and over the next seven days we'll tell you more about the network, including about some of the people, vendors and stories behind the network as well as share some of our plans for the network: a mobile version and dozen more quality and unique blogs and sites in the coming months. On Tuesday, some of our initial blog partners will be making their own announcements about joining Sacramento Connect, and explain what the network means to them. I'll say more about some of those partners Tuesday, but they and you the reader are what Sacramento Connect is really about. The technology just makes it easier to connect you to some interesting and useful content about communities in our region, things to do in Northern California, and a favorite of many Bee readers, keeping up with state politics and political commentary.