Sentinel teams with AuburnBuzz.com to build local online community
by John McCreadie
Sentinel Contributing Writer
In a move to bring readers more timely local news coverage and easier access to its community-focused articles, the Sentinel is now on the Web through an affiliation with AuburnBuzz.com, a locally based website interested in taking Auburn’s strong sense of community online.
Sentinel Executive Editor Don Chaddock and Strukture Media Solutions
Principal/Owner Craig Graham show off the AuburnBuzz.com website, which
now provides Sentinel articles online.
“This is the next step for the Sentinel in serving our community,” said
Publisher Janice Forbes. “It will help grow our Sentinel family of
readers and provide new opportunities for advertisers to connect with
locally based customers.”
The Sentinel, the region’s only locally owned and operated newspaper,
will continue to distribute its weekly print edition free of charge at
locations throughout Placer County and the Sierra foothills.
Through the AuburnBuzz.com website, many of the newspaper’s top stories
and columns -- including Joe Carroll’s “The Auburn Augur” and Executive
Editor Don Chaddock’s “Biscuits & Gravy” commentaries -- will now
be available online.
The teaming provides Sentinel readers and AuburnBuzz.com users with
more timely news coverage of local events than the Sentinel provides in
its printed pages, which hits newsstands each Friday.
“This is pretty huge,” said Chaddock. “We’re a community-oriented paper
and they’re a community-oriented website. It’s a naturally good fit for
us to work together.”
The fledgling AuburnBuzz.com website – launched in April – provides the
latest Internet capabilities. It includes so-called “Web 2.0” features,
such as social networking similar to the trendy MySpace.com website,
user-authored writings known as blogs, and lots of other user-driven
information. It is the invention of Craig Graham, principal and owner
of Auburn-based Strukture Media Solutions.
“It is a social networking website where real-world connections are
made in an online environment,” said Graham. “Anyone can participate by
sharing information about themselves or writing a restaurant review or
by joining a posted discussion.”
The site requires a free membership to fully utilize all of its
capabilities and users must be at least 16 years old to use the
social-networking component. However, registration is not necessary to
visit and view Sentinel material, said Graham.
Both companies bring expertise to the joint endeavor. With 15 years of
experience in website development and design, Graham created the
easy-to-use AuburnBuzz.com after discovering Internet data about Auburn
sparse.
For its part, the Sentinel -- co-owned by Forbes and Robert Evans and
founded by the late Tom Homer -- has been serving the greater Auburn
community for more than 18 years. While the organization has looked at
many web designs in the past 10 years, said Forbes, none fully met its
needs.
“It’s amazing (to see) what Craig has created,” said Forbes.
“AuburnBuzz.com offers area residents a great community forum.” Forbes
also hinted this is only the beginning of Sentinel’s foray online, but
declined to elaborate.
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