Saclights.com wants YOU!

I've spoken with a few people at The Bee, including the online folks, and most of them haven't even HEARD about saclights.com. The suspicion is that it was cooked up somewhere abroad - that is, beyond the Grid, or at least outside the Big Brick at 21st and Q - and is being "customized" for tie-in with The Bee. Sort of a "your picture here" approach to t-shirt fashion.

But no one I spoke to knows much about it. I guess they want to surprise us? My understanding is that what the site boils down to is not really a newspaper online; instead, it's a site like Yelp.com, which will depend largely on readers/posters to create content. Saclights.com will link to content already created by the newsroom and already posted on sacbee.com, but will not involve much in the way of original work by reporters or columnists.

Here's what you find when you go to saclights.com

If you can't be bothered to click, I'll make it easy for you: It's a placeholder, promising "local" - they use the word six times - and they're probably right. (Rick Rodriguez told me "it's all about local" as he told me he was shipping me out to Roseville.) But as Marketplace just told me (on KXJZ), social networking is the new email. That is, ubiquitous. And McClatchy - which is really what we're talking about here, not just The Bee - wants to "own" that social networking in Sacramento. Of course they do!

Meanwhile, Saclights.com promises (inelegantly) that "Nothing is too big or too small. We and you provide the – photos, videos, event listings, blogs, reviews and more. SacLights is into what you're into."

That sounds pretty "hep" - and it may work. But I like Yelp and I'm not at all sure that The Bee - or the corporation - can execute it any better. It'll be interesting to see what it looks like.

And if you're not very interested in what McClatchy has for your social networking needs, Saclights.com WILL give you a chance to win an iPhone. And we all want one of THOSE, right? They understand us! Sign me up!

I hear that there will be a launch party sometime next week, perhaps Dec. 6 or so, at Whiskey Wild...so if you want to know "where it's AT"...well, it might be there...