The Bee has long been a community connector as well as a news provider, and for the past year we've delighted in a new venture linking people in our region.

Sacramento Connect, which marked its first birthday March 29, has put sacbee.com readers in touch with dozens of passionate, smart and talented people through their blogs and websites.

Structurally, SacConnect is pretty simple: The sacramentoconnect.com home page highlights the best posts and updates from a growing list of partners – 130 and counting.

A toolbar at the bottom of every partner browser page helps navigate and connect the network, with buttons that let you easily share items via Facebook, Twitter or email. At sacbee.com we're expanding the connective links in other ways so that you find SacConnect headlines on certain topics – gardening, cars and so forth – next to similar content.

We're also highlighting and drawing from Sacramento Connect, which is becoming livelier and more varied all the time, in the print Bee.

Yet SacConnect is hard to describe to those who haven't seen it online, partly because it's just not a replica of something we've done with ink and paper.

Instead, we set out with digital tools to create a network of people and information – to connect them not just to sacbee.com, but also to one another.

I thought about this the other night during a gathering called "Table Talk." About 160 people came to The Bee on Wednesday evening to hear panels on food writing and trends, an event we co-sponsored with the community news website Sacramento Press.

The diverse audience and panelists were drawn by a mutual interest – not just in food, but in our region's food community. Among them were some of the 18 food and wine bloggers who are part of Sacramento Connect.

From their comments and chatter, it was clear that many in attendance participate in the food discussion over today's back fence – the Internet. Yet they came out in person to meet others, trade notes and even share a bit of food.

Community is an idea that goes beyond geography to passions and interests. The Bee's focus with Sacramento Connect is on people and relationships that extend our mission of serving this particular region of the world.

It's the network effect – communication back and forth among Sacramento Connect partners, readers, sacbee.com and contributors.

I've chatted in person or electronically with some of the SacConnect bloggers and media partners over the past year, and heard from a few as I worked on this column.

Most are enthusiastic about the network, and many also appreciate the social gatherings and digital outreach that draws blog partners together.

Ann Silberman, who writes with grace and humor about her experience as a breast cancer patient at "But Doctor, I Hate Pink," said she's impressed with how the network has developed.

"The idea of finding local bloggers and connecting them with the local newspaper is a nod to the future, and I am very happy to be a part of it," she emailed.

SacConnect has worked better in some ways than we expected, and not as well in others. Some bloggers have seen big readership boosts and a few haven't seen the benefits they'd expected.

They'll all help shape Sacramento Connect in its second year. So can you – come visit.

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Reach The Bee's editor, Melanie Sill, at (916) 321-1002.

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