Topix reinvents itself as a citizen news site
News aggregator Topix -- jointly owned by Gannet, McClatchy and Tribune -- has reinvented itself as a citizen media site.
CEO Rich Skrenta says the site switched models because it had hit a plateau of sorts: It reached 10 million monthly unique visitors, putting it in the top 25 news sites, but users typically visited few pages and weren't sticking around long, Skrenta said. Allowing for more interactivity will create more stickiness on the sites, which is what makes social networks and other social media sites attractive to advertisers.
In a note on the site, Topix says it chose this route because of the incredible response it got when it added forums in December 2005. Since launching the forums, more than 1 million people posted 5.5 million comments, adding more than 30,000 comments a day.
But even with 50,000 news sources, there just wasn't enough local news - and what news there was, couldn't be tuned finely enough with algorithms alone.So, in April 2007, we decided to open up our site, and give anyone the power to discuss, edit and share the news that matters to them.
Previously, several Topix founders created the Open Directory Project (originally called "NewHoo"), the first open development directory for the Internet, and now the largest human-edited web directory.
Topix is applying that model to the news, turning passive news into active dialogue by giving people an easy-to-use publishing system with a built-in audience.
Apr 03, 2007 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT
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1 comments about 'Topix reinvents itself as a citizen news site'Gannet? Oh, yeah the Fox people. Thanks for the info.
Posted by Catmoves at April 6, 2007 6:46 PM
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