February 7, 2008

Look Out Topix - Google Launches Localized News Service

Duncan Riley

32 comments »

Topix has made a name by aggregating tens of thousands of local news sources and aggregating them online (they also like citizen journalists). It was only a matter of time before Google expanded their news product to compete more directly with Topix. That time has come - today Google added an option for customized local news to its Google News service.

The localization option is now available on news.google.com, but does not seem to have been rolled out to country specific news portals as yet. Using the service is as simple as entering your post/ zip code or location into the Local News option box that now appears automatically when you visit Google News.

The feature pulls news stories based on your location, and are presented as a sub-section on the main Google News page, and have a sidebar menu entry and dedicated page as well.

According to Google:

As always, results will be clustered with multiple sources on a story. The top stories for a given area will be at the top of your results. Our article rankings will also take into account a publication’s location so we can promote all the local sources for each story.

Google News attracts a far larger audience than Topix - 47 million/month v. just 6.2 million for Topix (Comscore, December 2007 worldwide audience), but until now they have not provided good local news coverage. Topix now has some serious competition.

CrunchBase Information

Topix

Google News

Information provided by CrunchBase

Sphere It

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 4:48 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

Comments

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Kevin Allman

February 7th, 2008 at 5:03 am

interesting…was going to come sooner or later..
meetingflex.com

February 7th, 2008 at 5:18 am

Google is pushing hard..

It is either now or NEVER.

Rajan Tawate
Tristan Phillips

February 7th, 2008 at 6:02 am

Yep. Can hardly wait to get localized news from the Stormfront and Vanguard web sites via Google News.
Wayne Mulligan

February 7th, 2008 at 6:09 am

Topix just needs to take “local” news to a new level — I know Fred Wilson has been talking about “hyper local” news for a time now. There’s no way Google will ever be able to algorithmically index, sort and publish hyper-local news (e.g. my specific neighborhood within New York city).

Topix, can and should take that route. Be small, be nimble and specialize. It won’t be easy but it’s the only shot they have.

Good luck Topix!

-Wayne
CanCar

February 7th, 2008 at 6:42 am

The point is: how will make Google to cover the news of so many countries at the same time? Will be actual news?
MikeT

February 7th, 2008 at 6:45 am

Google’s news interface still sucks. It’s not user-friendly. Good step in adding local news, but they way they present them still has a lot of room for growth…
Samuel Driessen

February 7th, 2008 at 6:53 am

Very interesting! Is it also possible to publish your own local news? And couldn’t this also be used to offer all the news of one company (as in one local company)?
Howard Owens

February 7th, 2008 at 6:57 am

You just discovered this?

I’ve had a local news feed on my Google News page for at least more than 1 year.

This is nothing new.
Webside Ventures

February 7th, 2008 at 7:15 am

I agree, the Google News interface is pretty weak. At least Topix has them beat with that…for now. Also, Topix is more community-oriented with their forums and polls.
Logan

February 7th, 2008 at 7:30 am

It was inevitable that Google would try to make the addition to their news network.
AdvertiseSpace

February 7th, 2008 at 7:32 am

Certainly not a new feature… it’s been on Google news for a long time.
steve

February 7th, 2008 at 8:37 am

1) #9 gets it exactly right. have you noticed how active the forums are on Topix? obvioulsly, anytime google is your competitor it is serious, but Topix is much more than a local news feed.

2) 6.2 million?! that is freakin huge for a company no one in the valley pays much attention too.
Brian

February 7th, 2008 at 9:11 am

I think you missed the biggest part of the announcement - the ability to analyze the text of any given story and understand the location it’s discussing. Most local news sites - Topix included - use the sources location (e.g. SFGate) or the byline to determine the location. I believe Google is saying it’s able to read all sources and articles and determine the locale being discussed in the article and include that in your locale module. If they’re able to do it with accuracy, I would say this is an important step in creating the best local news offering.
Greg

February 7th, 2008 at 9:16 am

Oddly though, you can’t search local news.
stever

February 7th, 2008 at 9:29 am

#13 is wrong. topix doesn’t just use the source location to determine where a story is referring to. If that were the case, how would they classify stories from blogs, how would they know a story was about a particular person or sports team (thiings they also classify articles to)? I think you have them confused with Yahoo. Also, topix has about 50,000 sources they get news from. google still claims to only have 4500.
Blake

February 7th, 2008 at 9:43 am

@ Wayne #4
While it’s not as prevalent in the big metro neighborhoods yet, hyper-local activity is alive and well on Topix in towns where there is little or no news coverage from traditional print/on-line media.

A quick scan of locales on the latest forum threads on Topix shows a lot of activity in towns like Plainfield IL, Burkesville KY, and Seymour TN. Drop in and see what they’re talking about — I think this is about as “local” as you can get.
Brian

February 7th, 2008 at 9:43 am

@stever

You’re right, Topix does try and do this as well. It’s just that in my experience I find false positives in my local news on Topix. Not sure if Google is any better - but overall I think this is a good direction for both companies and a much more significant technology improvement than just adding a local news module to Google News, which was my point to begin with. Apologies if I’ve touched any nerves of Topix fans.
J

February 7th, 2008 at 10:00 am

I’ll be watching http://www.everyblock.com closely — that’s a fascinating hyperlocal site..
william

February 7th, 2008 at 10:16 am

are local content owners paid by google for access to their content ?
are there ads in the local news section ?
if there are ads does google give any ad revenue to the local content provider ?
can a local content provider opt out of googles archives ?
Wayne Mulligan

February 7th, 2008 at 10:21 am

@Blake #16 - Totally, they’re getting there. But I’m talking about even more local than that. You start promoting citizen journalism and you can have people writing about what happens within 4 square blocks of their home.

If there was a pothole problem on my street I doubt the guy 8 blocks over would care, but the 100 (or in my case in Manhattan, 1000) or so people who lived right near me would certainly care. Who can compete with that level of personalization?

-Wayne
Keith Thompson

February 7th, 2008 at 10:24 am

@ J #18

Don’t forget about http://www.yourstreet.com that Erick Schonfeld blogged in November 2007. They use a combo of their own algorithms with those from MetaCarta to geotag news content on the fly.
Blake

February 7th, 2008 at 10:38 am

@ Wayne #20

Fair points — Topix is built out to support the neighborhood-level citizen journalism you’re suggesting:
(e.g. Tribeca, Greenwich Village, Gramercy Park, etc.)

The promotion you mention, however, is tricky in towns like NY that are over-saturated with local media. Perhaps “build-it-and-they-will-come” meets less signal/noise in small town America?
Joe Smith

February 7th, 2008 at 10:42 am

Although I love Topix, I’ll be glad to see what Google News can pull off.
Tim

February 7th, 2008 at 10:45 am

Looks like Google News only localizes the news down to the city level. I typed in my local zip code and got news from all of San Francisco, which is not useful for me. As others have mentioned, sites like Topix, YourStreet and EveryBlock get down to the zip code and even neighborhood level. I think that’s a key distinction. While Google provides local news, these other sites provide hyperlocal news.
S. Beaumont

February 7th, 2008 at 11:00 am

I’m sure that if Google wanted to compete with Topix they could do so really well, but I don’t see how simply adding local headlines to their news page at all compares to creating a portal for valuable and relevant local news.

In recently comparing a number of “hyper-local” news aggregators, they are all lacking in one way or another. Those that exclude the human editing factor offer very little value if you have a local news source with a decent website, and even those with human editors still seem to do a poor job of emphasizing the stories that are of particular interest to local citizens.

Also lacking in many of the aggregators are the inclusion of local publishers, mainly blogs. IMHO, excluding this type of content puts many of these sites into a category of “great technology but poor execution.” Being able to extract local content from a million different sources and display it in a million different ways is only valuable if it both makes the content easier to access and digest and also understands what is important and what is just fluff.

A final thought, even after it’s front-end update I still think Topix is a nightmare to navigate and not that easy on the eyes.

I wrote about a number of these types of sites recently while trying to find a way a better way to scan my local headlines: http://raleighfreepress.com/20.....n-the-web/
john

February 7th, 2008 at 11:42 am

google’s looking more and more like microsoft
why couldn’t they just purchase topix instead of crushing them?
MikeT

February 7th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

@25: cause it’s cheaper to crush’em than “negotiate” with someone that small.
rubu

February 7th, 2008 at 12:30 pm

In recently comparing a number of “hyper-local” news aggregators, they are all lacking in one way or another.
Newt

February 7th, 2008 at 1:59 pm

How is this news? As has been mentioned, Topix has been doing this since 2004, using tens of thousands of sources. A quick examination shows Topix is not just looking at a source’s location or the byline. Me thinks google’s ego is a bit bruised after it’s stock tanked last week, and they’re trying to pull accolades out of thin air.
Thom Mullen

February 7th, 2008 at 2:14 pm

I think this move by Google is a bigger threat to local newspapers than it is to Topix or the other hyperlocal start-ups. Google is going to start eating newspaper’s bread and butter - which is local news and advertising - unless the traditional media get a local strategy fast. The big newspaper chains don’t seem to have either the vision or the technical know-how to create a viable local product. What they do have is content and money. It’s time for the newspaper chains to wake up and buy some of these hyperlocal start-ups (Topix is already spoken for, but not the others). This would at least give the newspapers a fighting chance against the great Google monster.
Jenkins

February 7th, 2008 at 5:07 pm

Let’s be real, Duncan. Topix joined the deadpool a long time ago. Their site/strategy isn’t working and their founder even admitted as much way back when. Rick Skrenta left a while ago. They are doing NOTHING!
Thom

February 7th, 2008 at 7:21 pm

Jenkins - Topix was purchased by a consortium of newspapers at a $64M valuation last year. Hardly the deadpool. Check your facts before throwing around comments like that.