News site Topix.net will relaunch this evening under their newly acquired domain name Topix.com. They are also launching a new product that will allow readers to write and edit local news articles directly.
The news was first written about by USA Today this afternoon. Topix is partly funded by USA Today’s parent company, Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune.
Topix already has local news pages for cities and towns across the United States and Canada (here’s the page for Atherton, CA). The news is auto-generated for those pages currently. Tonight, Topix will let users of the site become local editors, and write or expand on articles that will be of interest to that community.
Topix started allowing readers to leave comments on the site just over a year ago. The first editors will be selected from heavy commenters on the site.
Screen shots below. See the Topix corporate blog, and CEO Rich Skrenta’s personal thoughts as well.
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I think this is a fantastic idea, we’ll see how they implement it. I think a combination of wire stories + local commentary and user interaction, done right, would be huge.
Not that they have no competition, I just think on the local level promotion could be better and someone will grab a significatn advantage there.
Then again I live in Salem, Oregon, so maybe there already is local competition in larger cities. Salem rules BTW.
It would be great if they can work together with craigslist.org
Not live yet
but sounds really smart. I’ll definitely check it out.
Ran across the site a few times earlier, and I kind of liked it already. Hope it gets even better.
Not holding out much hope since ‘everything is already invented’ or whatever, but we’ll see.
Great Idea. I interviewed Rich Skrenta a while back:
http://www.npost.com/interview.jsp?intID=INT00102
Nate, if I knew you were going to follow me around the net for the next three years spamming that damn rotating url to the interview everywhere, I would never have done that interview. For the love of Knuth, please stop!
This just in — stupidest deal on the internet just became public.
This sounds like a good idea but I hope they can broaden their editor pool from just heavy commentators on their site over the past year.
Very nice, very nice… *cough*
How is this different from newsvine?
not sure how far will this go. afterall many countries are battling blogger-journo credibility. hope more of these will change certain mindsets
One thing is for sure, it will make things more open and thus there will be more chances of events like Kathy Sierras’ happening.
Lets see what this world of ours evolve into
Other countries have had a few successful “citizen - journalist” sites for a while. Since it focuses on a much needed and “can-keep-visitors-contributing” Topix does have a bright future ahead. There are many ‘auto-news-generated’ sites. I believe the key to topix’s success is to make and entice visitors to contribute local news constantly.
Nice idea and probably the right direction for topix. I do however wonder how much of this move was to generate unique content to increase their search engine traffic at the same time trying to avoid getting hit with duplicate content penalty.
Thats a great domain. I think people underestimate the power of a small and catchy little word like that. It really can boost your popularity..everything else being equal
Business Ideas
- To be honest; having to compete against Google News and Yahoo News … Msn News….
- Not quite a market place I would want to be
Citizen journalism is such a horrible idea. How could Topix dot com swim in exactly the wrong direction at this point in time? Haven’t the death of citizen journo sites demonstrated the true value of the concept? Apparently not. The last thing I want to read is what a bunch of morons with too much time on their hands have to say.
Topix.net acquired the domain Topix.com for approx $1M back in January. Topix.com was originally owned by a Canadian computer graphics and animation facility that specialized in character animation, special effects, film titling, and type and broadcast design.
This shows the importance of having a good domain for your business/company and that .com extension is still king. Here’s a clipping from Domain Name Wire (http://domainnamewire.com/2007/03/13/topixcom-sells-for-1m/):
“When entrepreneurs start a web site they frequently overlook the importance of a good domain. They think that if the site takes off they can always buy the more expensive domain they want. But Topix.net is a good example of why this is a bad strategy. Buying a good domain name from the get go pays off in the long run.”
Nice, I had the same idea over a year ago. Good luck
thanks for the tips, this is an excellent blog!
Its really very informative and useful articles I have found ever…….
This sounds like a good idea but I hope they can broaden their editor pool from just heavy commentators on their site over the past year. it would be great to follow this project grow and develop.
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