Example of a Sacramento Connect category widget on The Sacramento Bee’s family webpage, Sac Moms Club. Posts in the widget are from Sacramento Connect partners.
Partners maintain their own blogs or websites and their posts and articles are pulled into Sacramento Connect via RSS feeds. The posts are sorted and organized in a customized WordPress system and are then integrated into Sacramentoconnect.com as well as into widgets on Sacbee.com and on the Sacramento Connect toolbar. Some of the organization is dynamically selected and some is managed by online editors.
Posts selected as “Editor’s Picks” are featured on the Sacramento Connect homepage and are also promoted via Twitter. Selected posts are also featured on several Facebook pages: Sacramento Connect, SacPaws, and SacMomsClub.
Partner content is also featured in selected sections of the print edition of The Sacramento Bee, such as food and wine, gardening, and opinion. These short excerpts are geared toward highlighting the blog’s unique contents and encouraging readers to discover the website online.
Widgets add Unique Local Content to Sacbee.com
Content from Sacramento Connect partners is featured in two types of widgets on The Sacramento Bee’s website, category widgets and Lingospot widgets.
Category Widgets
Category-specific widgets use RSS feeds from the Sacramento Connect system. Examples of these widgets can be found on The Sacramento Bee’s website on Sac Paws, Sac Moms Club, Food & Wine, Cars, Sacramento Kings, and more. The widgets are updated automatically when new posts come in. These widgets pair partner content with Bee content and provide readers with unique local stories based on the topic they are currently reading.
An example of Sacramento Connect partner content being dispayed in a Lingospot widget on Sacbee.com.
Lingospot Widgets
A second type of widget found on Sacbee.com uses an algorithm to assess content from the entire partner network and match it to the story on the Sacbee.com page. These widgets allow for more creative matching than could be accomplished simply through category sorting, and offer up a wider assortment of articles that readers might be interested in.
In addition to appearing on article pages, these Sacramento Connect widgets also appear on a multitude of dynamically generated “Topic” pages, such as this Sacramento Topic page.
Widgets on toolbar provides readers with additional ways to find stories
In addition to the website and widgets, readers can find related stories from Sacramento Connect partners and The Sacramento Bee by clicking the Latest Posts button on the toolbar. This allows a website-like navigation tool from anywhere within the network. It also allows readers who may not be visitors to Sacbee.com or Sacramentoconnect.com to nonetheless discover content from those sources since the toolbar is on partner websites.
The stories in the toolbar widget correspond to the main category for the blog or website the reader is visiting, such as family, food and wine, gardening, etc. Secondary tabs contain additional content from the entire network, daily editor’s picks, and the latest from Sacbee.com. The toolbar loads last (after the entire page loads), so it does not slow down partner websites.
Other buttons on the toolbar allow readers to share using social media like Twitter and Facebook, search for posts, and initiate a chat session.
Toolbar on Bakedbree.com with Latest Posts button/widget expanded. The toolbar is a unifying feature for Sacramento Connect partners. Here, the Latest Posts button shows the most recent posts from Sacramento Connect’s Food & Wine bloggers as well as Food & Wine content from The Bee. On a gardening blog, the Latest Posts button features the most recent gardening posts.
