Topix.net Press

Topix.net: All news is local
MarketWatch, posted February 28, 2005

Topix.net named to EContent 100 - Companies that matter most in the digital content industry
EContent, posted November 29, 2004

Topix.net, the Best News Site Online
Real Web Marketing, posted November 8, 2004

Topix.net and Citysearch Partnership Points To Future Of Local Search
Forrester Research, posted November 4, 2004

Topix: World domination, deal 2
Susan Mernit, posted November 4, 2004

Topix and Citysearch Play to Each Other's Strengths
Paid Content, posted November 4, 2004

Topix and Citysearch team up
Silicon Beat, posted November 4, 2004

Topix.net and Citysearch Announce Partnership
Search Engine Watch, posted November 4, 2004

Topix, Citysearch Team for Local Content
ClickZ, posted November 4, 2004

RSS Feeds Hunger for More Ads
Wired, posted October 15, 2004

Topix.net Gets a Portal News Deal
Poynter Online, posted September 21, 2004

Ask Jeeves adds new features
San Jose Mercury News, posted September 21, 2004

Also Monday, Jeeves announced a partnership with Palo Alto news search engine Topix.net. The deal is a significant boost for Topix, which launched officially just six months ago.
Topix operates a news search site much like Google News. Unlike Google, though, Topix focuses on local news. Topix will provide all the local results on the Ask Jeeves news page.
"Doing a deal with Jeeves is a great validating move for us," said Mike Markson, vice president of business affairs for Topix. Markson said other, similar partnerships would be announced soon.

Ask Jeeves, Topix.net Deal to Boost Blog Visibility
Micro Persuasion, posted September 21, 2004

Ask Jeeves personalises Web searches
Reuters UK, posted September 21, 2004

MyJeeves "Social Search" and Topix.net
Weblogs, Inc., posted September 21, 2004

News search engine Topix.net gets even better
in Pandia Post, posted August 22, 2004

Topix.net explains new mix
in Cyberjournalist, posted August 5, 2004

You may have noticed that the new Topix.net has had some unusual stories leading it this week -- more crime and celebrity than the stories usually leading news sites and Google News. That's intentional -- to differentiate Topix from the competition, and, interestingly, try to spot national-quality stories before they hit the national media. Topix.net CEO Rich Skrenta tell CyberJournalist.net a little more about how the site's new algorithms work: [more]

Topix -- Make the News Come to You
in The Blawg Channel, posted August 5, 2004

I never thought I'd say I like a news site as well or better than Google News, but it's true -- Topix.net is a terrific news resource. The folks over at Topix launched a new version of the site this week, with a new front page and a bunch of improved features. Topix crawls over 10,000 news sources (which makes Google's 4,500 pale in comparison), but that's not the best part: you can receive an RSS feed for just about anything on the site, whether it be a specific news topic, keyword search, or even your own zip code. Topix has an aggregated feed for every zip code in the country. If you're not into the RSS thing, Topix will mail you an alert based on your keyword search. Gary Price has more in a review at SearchDay. Topix really has the right idea.

Skrenta: Topix.Net New Features
in New Media Hack, posted August 3, 2004

The key nugget seems to be a much more sophisticated NewsRank algorithm. There are also some UI improvements, and I'm just amazed at the number of sources and feeds Topix provides.

Personalization, Classification and Staying Ahead of the Reader
in Blog23, posted August 3, 2004

Topix.net Improves
in Cyberjournalist, posted August 3, 2004

Google: Should You Search for a Better Deal? (mention)
in The Washington Post, posted August 3, 2004

Topix
in The Toronto Star, posted August 3, 2004

Created by some of the founders of the Open Directory Project, Topix.net calls itself the Internet's largest news site. The Web site pulls together articles from more than 10,000 media outlets ranging from small-town papers to the BBC.

Topix.net Unveils Major Overhaul
MicroPersuasion, posted August 2, 2004

I have been playing with the beta for a couple of weeks or so and I can tell you the upgraded site is phenomenal. Topix.net is becoming more and more useful every day, giving Google and MSN a run for their money.

Topix.net Ups Ante in News Aggregation
Poynter Online, posted August 2, 2004

Watch out, Google News. A principal competitor in the automated news aggregator category, Topix.net, has debuted a redesign that significantly enhances its news offering. ...

Topix Upgrades News, Adds Email Alerts
Search Engine Watch, posted August 2, 2004

Topix.net Gets Redesign
ClickZ, posted August 2, 2004

News search service adds alerts, RSS
CBS MarketWatch, posted August 2, 2004

Topix upgrades news, adds email alerts
JD's New Media Musings, posted August 2, 2004

Topix Gets Better
John Battelle, posted August 2, 2004

Topix makeover: Really nice new features
SEO and Web Marketing News, posted August 2, 2004

Topix.net Goes Live With New Look and Features
ResourceShelf, posted August 2, 2004

... But the main new feature, who should be adopt by other site, is the dynamic sub-menu. When you drill down in categories, the submenu of that category will reflect you visits. They also be reorder with your latest categories you have visited. Very smart feature!

Did you have your Topix today?
The Media Drop, posted August 2, 2004

If you haven't used this news aggregator, now might be a good time to start. The navigation is significantly better on the left-hand side, and the way content is being sorted/filtered has definitely improved. ...

Topix.net and a new NewsRank
Geeking with Greg, posted August 2, 2004

Topix does have some impressive technology. It's not at all easy to categorize and prioritize articles using content analysis, but Topix.net does a pretty good job. How do they do it? ...

Topix: New release improves timeliness, relevance
Susan Mernit, posted August 2, 2004

Small sites challenge big search engines
SF Chronicle, posted July 19, 2004

News on Demand
PC World, posted June 7, 2004

Topix.net delivers really local news
Louisville Courier-Journal, posted May 1, 2004

The amazing thing about Topix is how it can distill news down to the smallest communities. [more]

Topix.net CEO Rich Skrenta on How Blogs Amplify Traditional PR
Steve Rubel / Micro Persusasion, posted April 30, 2004

nPost.com Interview with Rich Skrenta
nPost.com, posted April 26, 2004

Net Search Startups Brave Crowded Field
Investor's Business Daily, posted April 21, 2004

"World's Largest News Web Site"
Minnesota Public Radio / FutureTense, posted April 21, 2004

News easy to find on Internet
Syracuse.com / The Post-Standard, posted April 14, 2004

The Local pages at Topix.net can be useful not only for keeping up with all the news in your own community and nearby areas, but also for checking out what is happening where your child attends college, what's going on in your hometown or what life is like in an area that you'll be visiting.

Behind the Scenes at News Aggregator Topix.Net
Search Engine Watch, posted April 13, 2004

Topix.net combines an excellent news search engine with two other hot technologies: local search and personalization.
The Topix database includes full text news stories from over 4,000 sources, including a great deal of content that's difficult to quickly access elsewhere. The real power of this nifty news search engine comes from its easy-to-use pre-built pages that aggregate news and other information into more than 150,000 topic-specific pages.
These specialized pages cover local news and information for every zip code in the United States. There are also news pages dedicated to specific companies, industries, sports teams, actors, and many other subjects.

Topix.net - world's largest news Website - launches with 150,000 categories
WebTalk Radio Show, posted April 10, 2004

Topix Up to 9,000 News Sources
ResearchBuzz, posted March 31, 2004

Holy-Cow-When-You-Said-Local-You-Weren't-Kiddin' news site Topix (http://www.topix.net) is now up to 9,000 news sources, up from 3,600. Almost a quarter of the sources they're crawling are daily newspapers, and only 1% of what they're crawling are Weblogs.
Topix allows you to get local news. I mean really local. I mean city level, though you can specify zip code. Searching for 90210 provides me several possible categories but the top category is, of course, for Beverly Hills CA.
Oh, yes, there are other categories. Among them are business, world, sports, and offbeat. These categories have literally hundreds if not thousands of subcategories; Sci/Tech has more specific categories for everything from Agriculture to Geology to Linux to Paleontology. Pages also have their own RSS feeds if you prefer to do your monitoring via a feed reader.

Why Topix Is Different: Toward A Sustainable Model For Net Media Companies
John Battelle's Searchblog, posted March 29, 2004

Last Friday I had a chance to stop by the Palo Alto offices of Topix, in many ways a classic internet start up . Valley-based, run by a serial entrepreneur, good buzz - but it didn't take long for me to sense that something was different this time. Before I get into that, let me first give you a few thoughts on the service itself, and the broader role it plays in the search business. [more]

Local News on Demand
Mike's Journal, posted March 18, 2004

Wow. Have you seen Topix.net yet? Local news on demand. Plug in your zip code and there's local cop and crime news, culture stories, politics and even art from an amazingly wide variety of local sources. This is news aggregation at its best. It grabs everything and really brings it down almost to a neighborhood level.

Two New Sites Spidering U.S. Local Content
Poynter Online, posted March 17, 2004

If you're an executive at the online operations of a newspaper, radio, or TV station in the U.S., you should take a look at Topix.net and at Google's local search beta test site. Topix spiders yours and more than 9,000 other local news sites. Its users can enter one of your local ZIP codes and see a page showing all local news from you and your competitors. For example, compare the local news page of my town's newspaper against Topix's for the same locale. Topix provides the same stories plus more. Topix vice president of business affairs Michael Markson tells me that his company wants to partner with, not compete against, local newspapers and broadcasters, increasing traffic to those sites.

Web site faces battle for users in market for local news
San Jose Mercury News, posted March 15, 2004

The online search and news world is plenty crowded these days. But a group of former Sun Microsystems and Netscape engineers have carved out a space where few other Internet-only companies have ventured: local news.
It's called Topix.net, and founder Rich Skrenta and his partners say it's the "largest news Web site ever created."
Based in Palo Alto, the site provides local news for every ZIP code in the country, more than 30,000 cities and towns. In much the same way that Google News automatically scoops up stories from around the world, Topix's computers troll the Web for every local news story they can find, allowing users in any part of the country to instantly see what's happening in their back yard. [more]

New Web Site Review - Topix.net
Harvard Business School - Working Knowledge To Go, posted March 15, 2004

For the traveling executive, it never hurts to get a little local news from the next town on your agenda. Maybe that supplier you're courting was just indicted, or there is a tornado watch on tap. Topix.net, a news aggregation site, does a particularly nice job of collecting local news. Just put in the zip code or name of the town you're interested in, and up pops news from newspapers in that area (not just the big metro dailies), along with news from that state and the local weather.

A Local Google News
Poynter Online, posted March 11, 2004

No matter what your beat is, the site I'm about to tell you about likely covers it. Topix.net takes the idea of news aggregation one step further than sites like Google News and 1stHeadlines.com, categorizing news stories on the Web into more than 150,000 pages.

Topix.net Launches
in Vin Crosbie's Digital Deliverance, posted March 9, 2004

We're watching the launch of Topix.net, news site whose robots scrape thousands of American news media sites and aggregate and categorize the content for easy browsing by locality. We were initially skeptical of the venture, but have been impressed by what we've seen.
In fact, a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, the local newspaper where Topix is based, called us for comment about it, and we told him that I think Topix probably produces a better news Web site for many localities than those localities own newspapers do. Earlier in the day, we had taken a half dozen US postal codes of places where we have lived, entered those codes into Topix, and compared the results against those towns' newspaper Web sites. Unfortunately for the newspapers, Topix did a better job. Of course, none of those towns were large, but then the average US newspaper isn't in a large town. (Among the 1,400 daily newspapers published in the US, some 1,200 have less thanb 50,000 daily circulation.) The New York Times or Chicago Tribune might do better in New York City or Chicago, but Topix beat most average-sized US newspapers.
One of the advantages Topix has is it gathers content from multiple media companies. For example, a newspaper's Web site has content primarily from its print edition, while Topix has content from that newspaper, other newspapers that might cover the same town, and all the TV and radio stations and business journals covering that town. It could be a formidable competitor. [more]

Topix.net Takes Local Search A Step Further
WebProNews, posted March 9, 2004

News aggregation site Topix.net officially launched Monday, boasting 150,000 pages of topical news in strong contrast with Google News.s eight pages.
Furthering the user experience, the topical news pages are conveniently sorted into categories through an intuitive Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine that determines where each story belongs. This patent-pending categorization engine operates at a higher level than other sites. search technologies, which are keyword-based.
Topix.net also stands apart from competitors such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN in that it.s the first site aspiring to localize disparate audiences through content. Striving to become a leader in localization, the site features news stories derived from 9,000 online sources and offers local stories for every United States zip code . although not all categories are up-to-date yet.
The potential appeal of Topix stretches beyond users to the advertising industry, where businesses can target and reach demographics by location, profession, or interests.
"We're connecting people to the most relevant news about their work, life and interests," said Rich Skrenta, chief executive officer of Topix.net. "With 150,000 micro-focused news pages, we connect advertisers with targeted audiences in a completely new way."
Could Topix.net pave the way for the future of local and topical search?

Local Search Gains Traction in Maps, News
eWeek, posted March 9, 2004

It also bases its categorizations not just on keyword searches but by matching news with a database of information from company names and celebrities to local streets and bridges, Skrenta said. Topix.net's news sources extend beyond mainstream media outlets. They also include a selection of college and high-school newspapers, Weblogs, local police blotters and health inspection and Coast Guard reports, Skrenta said.

Topix.net
Rich Miller's TechnoSponge, posted March 9, 2004

If you use RSS feeds, you're going to love Topix.net, one of the best aggregators I've come across. Whether you're looking for a "build-your-own" online newspaper or customized RSS feeds for your own site, Topix has it all. It offers an RSS feed for each of its 150,000 categories, including a news feed for every ZIP code in the US. Topix.net is calling itself "the largest publisher of non-weblog RSS on the net." It was put together by the folks who created the Open Directory Project, which now provides content for many major search engines. Topix will be a major new player in the news aggregation game.

A Whole Lot of Topix
Line56, posted March 8, 2004

Topix.net offers 150,000 pages of highly categorized content as opposed to news.google's eight; revenue model localizes advertising.

News Search: Topix.net
ResourceShelf, posted March 8, 2004

A web-based news aggregator that we've mentioned on ResourceShelf several times, Topix.net, moves out of Beta today. It's absolutely worthy of your attention.

All news is local to new Web site
CBS MarketWatch, posted March 8, 2004

Topix.net said its new Web site is the Internet's largest resource for news and offers 150,000 topical news pages and local news for every U.S. Zip code. The company said the extreme localization would be a boon for advertisers. "They can maximize their online advertising budget by ensuring that their messages are directed to their desired target demographic," Rich Skrenta, chief executive officer, said in a statement. "We're connecting people to the most relevant news about their life, work and interests ... with 150,000 micro-focused news pages from 9,000 news sources."

Topix.net Launches
ClickZ, posted March 8, 2004

"This is a way for a small business in a small town to make sure its ads are being read only by customers in their area," said Michael Markson, the company's VP of business affairs.

Topix.net Launches Today
Online Journalism Review, posted March 8, 2004

Via I Want Media: Topix.net launched today, a news aggregator site with 150,000 topically categorized news pages from over 9,000 online news sources, reports Click Z News. What makes Topix.net different from other news aggregators, such as Yahoo or MSN, is its focus on local news and business. The site is hoping to attract both national and local advertisers, with the local focus stemming from a regional search feature that ensures area advertisers exposure to their customers. The site uses RSS and and XML feeds, but also searches HTML pages for news. Topix.net has plans to create custom RSS feeds in the future as well.

Topix.net Launches
PaidContent.org, posted March 8, 2004

I have been test-driving Topix.net, the new news aggregation site, and I have to say, I am impressed, at least on the functionalities side. For me, the RSS feeds on niche topics is a killer... The site is similar to news aggregators like Google's, MSN's or Yahoo!'s, but it takes the concept to the local level...local news on my alma mater town Bloomington..better still, an RSS feed on it...Hoosier heaven... Topix.net's executive management team includes three of the founders of the Open Directory Project, currently the source for the Google directory, including Rich Skrenta, CEO of Topix.net.

Topix.net betting local approach will give it extra muscle
San Jose Business Journal, posted March 5, 2004

A Palo Alto news Web site is launching that borrows the advertising model of Google, the focus of city sites, the aggregation function of Yahoo and the familiarity of a community newspaper.

Hot Topix
Guardian Unlimited, posted January 29, 2004

"News fiends should take a look at Topix.net, which offers news sorted into a larger number of categories. The front page carries the start of one story from each of the main subject areas; it also offers a range of people from Ann Miller to Vanessa Redgrave, and local US news by post code or city. Dive into a section such as Science/Technology News and you get offered even more topics. In this case, they run from Agriculture to Space via Chemistry and Nanotechnology. Computer topics include FreeBSD, Linux and Microsoft Windows. The site trawls news stories from more than 10,000 sources to create more than 150,000 "topically based, individual news-pages", so there's a good chance you'll find something of interest."

For Truly Local News Try Topix.net
GeoLocal, posted January 29, 2004

One to Watch: Topix
Traffick, posted January 18, 2004

New Travel Resource: Topix
BizNet Travel Log, posted January 17, 2004

From the folks who brought us the Open Directory Project, we now get a massive search engine of news called Topix. One of the best things about Topix is that you can get news locally for more than 100 U.S. cities as well as according to certain business topics, including Travel and Tourism.

New News Aggregating Site On the Horizon -- Topix
ResearchBuzz, posted January 14, 2004

Another MegaNews Site
Paige's Page, posted January 14, 2004

Local news rules on Topix
JD's New Media Musings, posted January 14, 2004

Topix.net: Where Local News Rules
Susan Mernit's Blog: Navigating the Info Jungle, posted January 13, 2004

From the creators of the OpenDirectory Project...
Metafilter, posted January 13, 2004

From the creators of the Open Directory Project comes their new effort: a classifying news crawler : Topix.net. They've got some cool text processing that allows them to classify each story in terms of content and geographic location. Very cool ideas in agreggation!

New News Aggregator: Topix
TechDirt, posted January 12, 2004

Topix.net Press

Recent coverage of Topix.net