When Land Park resident Ken Parks was first strolling through the listing of available places he wanted to rent, he thought “wow, newly built, upscale neighborhood, pool, gym, great price, quiet home away from home living, what more could a guy ask”. However the listing that Parks was searching through wasn’t your typical rental listing in the apartment or home market, it was a room space being rented by a homeowner out of her Natomas condo complex. Parks, a 34 year-old state employee represents a growing number of people within Sacramento County and around the country that have taken to calling someone else’s home their home with room space renting or sub-leasing housing. It is not a tota

Thanks to all of you who came to the Media Panel at the Urban Hive Wednesday night! We have another engaging event scheduled for next week. Jeff Marmins, who taught our last Facebook workshop, will be leading the Google event titled, "Get Google in your Social Media Mix." Jeff is the creator of Social Media Path and partnership director of Social Media Club Sacramento. The event will be at the Sacramento Press office Dec. 15 from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Jeff will discuss how to condense all of the social media sites you post to into one application on Google, successfully use RSS feeds and answer your specific questions. This workshop is designed for intermediate Google users. If you'd like a

Twitterature, Twitterverse, Twibe, Tweetaholic and Twitterhea were some of the noteworthy word clusters mentioned by the New Oxford American Dictionary committee while choosing its 2009 Word of the Year. With this new dialect, it should come as no surprise that Sacramento TweetUps (social events that allow Twitter users to meet in real life) are drawing crowds of more than a hundred people. Earlier this month, an entire weekend was dedicated to social media. Alejandro Reyes created and organized Sacramento's first two-day Social Media Weekend at the University of Phoenix in Natomas, Nov. 6 and 7. Bloggers, financial strategists, real estate agents, non-profits, online business owners and

Have you been to a TweetUp? They come in every size and shape and there is nearly one for every interest! A TweetUp is a social event that is promoted and organized on Twitter. “It's basically a place to meet and network with people in the Sacramento area who use Twitter,” said Alejandro Reyes, co-organizer of #SacTweetUp, a monthly networking mixer that regularly attracts over 100 attendees. “We wanted to create an atmosphere where people using Twitter could connect on a much deeper level, build new relationships, and have a lot of fun.” #SacTweetUps usually occur in the evening at a downtown or midtown hot spot; but what if big crowds or night life venues aren’t your thing? For those w

Three local non-profit organizations were featured in a Sacramento Social Media Club panel on Tuesday evening hosted by the Sacramento State College of Continuing Education. The panel included Celia Cortez, Projects and Event Manager for the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; Jordan Blair, Board Member for River City Food Bank; and Jon Benorden, Program Coordinator for the Center for AIDS Research, Education and Service (CARES). Lesley Miller, Media Director for 3Fold Communication, also sat on the panel. Moderator Josh Morgan, principal at Morgan/Dorado and program director for the Sacramento Social Media Club, focused the discussion on how non-profits are using social media to educ

Some say God is everywhere but last month, we discovered that social media is everywhere too—even in our churches! On October 20, 2009, the Sacramento Social Media Club held a panel discussion on the use of social media by local churches. The event, “Pray for Social Media”, was hosted by The Sacramento Press, and was moderated by Jeff Marmins of Social Media Path and partnership director for the Sacramento Social Media Club. Panelists included Josh Trevino from the Parish Council of St. Anna Greek Orthodox Church in Roseville; Robert Mees, Director of Evangelism at Sierra Baptist Church in Pioneer in Amador County and CJ Alvarado, Director of Communications and Technology at Bayside Church

Police converged on a ballroom in a downtown hotel Tuesday night, but there wasn’t a crime in progress. “Social Crime” was the topic of Tuesday evening’s Sacramento Social Media Club event hosted by The Citizen Hotel in Downtown Sacramento. Representatives from local law enforcement shared how their organizations are using social media tools to prevent crime, improve community outreach, and even take down predators. Josh Morgan of Morgan/Dorado Public Relations and programming director for the Sacramento Social Media Club presented a “101” on Facebook Privacy. He explained how Friends Lists on Facebook can be used to limit information connections can see on your profile. Josh, for exampl

One local arts organization not in need of financial aid is The Sacramento Opera. In the 2008-2009 season it not only ended the year in the black, but the organization eliminated all its debt, exceeded its budget goal and grew its ticket sales by nearly 38 percent. After disappointing ticket sales in 2008, the opera was fortunate to have extra income contributed from private donors such as the Mildred Reis Estate and other corporate sponsors such as Raley's and Marriott. The organization also paid back a city loan incurred in 1992. Attendance for the season's four feature shows totaled 17,414, while the community programs saw an all-time high in participation with 6,152 audience members

Twitter has become a common and powerful tool, if not essential, to reach and communicate with customers for many businesses. I, as founder of Radee Wine, Inc., a start-up wine importer and marketer, also use Twitter to talk about our wines and to learn about customers and other players in the industry. While Twitter gives tremendous access to information about business and people, there is nothing like meeting those behind the profile photos in person. This Tuesday, owners of three wine companies, James David Cellars, MAS Wine Company, and Radee Wine will gather and showcase the wines at Sacramento’s first Vino Tweet Up at L Wine Lounge in Midtown Sacramento. What makes this event intere

Clad in green clothing and ribbons, hundreds gathered at the west steps of the Capitol Friday, to bring awareness to the current unrest in Iran. Their signs called for freedom, nonviolent resistance and a plea, “Obama Please Help Us.” Speakers detailed the series of events over the past week in Iran, highlighting violence and the concern of Iranian voters. An enthusiastic speaker read a numbered manifesto in Farsi, listing desires for the future of Iran. Included in this list was the wish for a leader elected by the people. Many people voiced their concerns over the alleged unfair election. Others began a series of chants that called for “Freedom from Dictatorship,” that soon evolved int

The Sacramento Press is giving away two ipod shuffles. Here are the rules of the game. 1. Read the article on the Crocker Art Museum's new wing by Suzanne Hurt posted here on sacramentopress.com 06/05/09. 2. Join the conversation by posting a comment on the article. 3. Invite your friends who are not yet community contributers to sign up for sacramentopress.com [free]. You can use email, phone calls, twitter, facebook or any other social network to ask people to sign up and to vote for you. The votes can be from any community contributer new or old but recruiting helps. One vote per community contributer. 4. Now ask them post a comment in the same article and use your sacramentopress.

 Photos taken at The Sacramento Press and Entreprini Tweetup.

Photos taken at The Sacramento Press and Entreprini Tweetup.  

Hoping to meet more people and bring them to our office as well as support social media, we at The Sacramento Press will be holding our first Tweetup this Thursday, May 28, from 6 - 8 p.m. We were very lucky to team up with Ricardo Robles, from Capsity Offices, Ronnie Ledesma, from Sacramento Social Media Club and Darby Flynn, from Chalk it Up! to connect with all sorts of artists and local businesses. Thursday evening will be filled with belly dancing from Red Tent Belly Dance, performance art from Phoenix Gallery, wine tasting from MAS Wine and James David Cellars, break dancing from Capitol Roots Dance Studio, chalk drawing from Chalk it Up! artists, a presentation from the Sacramento

Twitterers are using the Sacramento County public health division's page to comment on the swine flu outbreak. Mona Romero at The Sacramento Press explains how you can follow the public comments on Twitter: Go to: http://search.twitter.com/ Enter the following name: sacpublichealth You'll come up with this result: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=sacpublichealth You can now read the swine flu comments. The public can learn more about local swine flu developments at the following Twitter page: http://twitter.com/SacPublicHealth  

Come join your fellow neighbors, entrepreneurs, activist and (you fill in the blank) to see Democracy in action. The 100 Minds group, an Oak Park based Think Tank, is hosting  "City Council Meet-up Party: Democracy 101" at tomorrow's Council meeting.   Participants are encouraged to wear your Bikeramento shirt, LJ Urban shirt, Sacramento Park(ing) Day shirt or whatever cause you're passionate and a laptop for live twittering, blogging or transcribing of the evenings discussion. You'll have the opportunity to see how democracy works on a local level and the steps necessary to take action.  We'd like to show the City Council that we mean business with a large turnout of local leaders. Thi

"Twitterpated" took on a new meaning as the Social Media Club Sacramento convened for their first meeting on Thursday night. Around 35 people gathered from all different backgrounds to discuss social media and meet the original founders, Kristie Wells and Chris Heuer. According to their Facebook group, Social Media Club strives to "bring together journalists, publishers, communications professionals, artists, amateur media creators, citizen journalists, teachers, students, tool makers, and other interested collaborators. Essentially the people who create and consume media who have an interest in seeing the ‘media industry’ evolve for everyone’s benefit." After beverages and snacks were

Last night at Pangaea Cafe, a local hip coffee house owned by Rob Archie, hosted the first ever SacTweetUp, an amazing gathering of Sacramentan tweeples.  If you don't know what tweeples are then you are probably not tweeting. Tweeples are people using twitter. Twitter is a popular social networking and micro-blogging service used for staying connected in real time and used by more than 1 million people worldwide. It seems that everybody is tweeting.  Even Lance Armstrong twittered about his bike being stolen to his thousands of followers right after he learned about it. Last night’s SacTweetUp was a complete success.  There were about 25 to 30 people present.  I was so happy to be ther

 I have a simple suggestion for the Sacramento Bee.  It's an experiment.  It might not work, but since the ad revenues for newspapers are drying up faster than the lakes and reservoirs of our drought-ridden state it's time the Bee took a few chances.  Why doesn't the Bee try to sell ads on its Twitter page?   Now before the Bee did that it would have to promote its Twitter page.  Currently, it has only 468 followers, about half as many followers as the Sacramento Press's Twitter page has.  This fact is indicative of the Bee being at sea where new media is concerned.   Twitter works really well for aggregating the content of the Bee's online paper.  I unsubscribed to its RSS feed in my G

OK, so I’m a bit of an online junkie. If I’m at home, I’m either at my computer or I’ve reluctantly given in to the need to sleep or take care of other bodily needs. I used to be like this with TV: Ten years ago I had 3 VCR’s wired in series and never quite understood the question “What did you watch last night?” just as whoever asked it didn’t really understand when I responded with “Errr…everything.” So now I’m online at almost all hours and that means that I typically have 12-15 browser windows open and probably have 7-8 incoming avenues for communication available at any time. Or 9-10 if you include my phone, which generally gets forgotten when I’m at home and fixated on the 22” cant