The Sacramento Press Now Using Live Streaming Video as Additional Feature to Enhance Community Involvement

SACRAMENTO, Calif., May 4 /PRNewswire/ -- The Sacramento Press is adding live, streaming video to its coverage of news, cultural and community events in the region as a way to further enrich readers' grasp of local issues and events and to boost their involvement in their communities' activities.

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"We've embedded live, streaming video into events like the St. Patty's Day block party downtown and some 'Second Saturday' activities so people could log on to our site and see a lot of what was going on," said Denise Coleman, operations and marketing logistics manager for The Sacramento Press.

"We received a lot of positive response, both from people who were excited to know they were featured on The Sacramento Press and from people who couldn't attend the events but could check in and see what was going on," added Coleman.  "That made us want to do live video streaming for other events."

Live streaming sends video signals directly from cameras at an event to a website for observation on the desktop or mobile devices of those viewing an event via the Web; this as opposed to storing digital video information on a server computer for playback at random times.  The Sacramento Press embeds links to video streams in articles posted on its site about events that are to receive live video-streaming coverage.

Coleman said she and her staff use a laptop equipped with a Webcam and microphone, or their camera-equipped iPhones, to generate live streaming video, and then use social media to spread word of its availability at The Sacramento Press website with posts to followers at Twitter and Facebook.

"Live, streaming video is a new tool to enhance our community outreach and that really helps us fulfill our mission to engage with readers and chronicle the vibrancy of our neighborhoods and our community at large," Coleman said.

"We're pretty excited about it," she said.  "Live, streaming video opens up a lot of communication and interaction with our readers.  It allows us to create a very visible presence in the region, not just downtown, but reaching out farther to get a lot more community interaction and involvement.

"Going forward in the Sacramento summer event season, our main focus for live video streaming is to engage the community through interviews with performers and attendees at events ... to give people a view of what's happening at an event, whether they can drop by or not," Coleman said.

Upcoming events to covered live via video streaming include Concert in the Park performances by local bands in Cesar Chavez Park on Friday nights starting May 7; a celebration of the Oak Park neighborhood May 8 at McClatchy Park; Second Saturday Art Walk at Zocalo, also on May 8, at 18th and Capitol; the Oak Park Farmer's Market on Saturday, May 15, at 35th and Broadway, and Walk-'N' Rock for local children's charities on May 30.

About The Sacramento Press

Aiming to rewrite the rules of journalism through community engagement, The Sacramento Press uses a hyper-local lens and an army of 800-plus community contributors to offer reporting and commentary on all news and issues of interest to residents of the city's communities.  Through its powerful website, events and marketing services, the pioneering online media outlet partners with local business to advance their brands through sponsorships of community activities. It also provides businesses social-networking-advisory services.  To learn more, click on http://sacramentopress.com/.

SOURCE The Sacramento Press