News aggregation is being approached in every which way,. driven by the long tail possibilities of search optimization, and less and less local output from newspapers, TV and radio. The content creator sites, hyper local sites, blog aggregators and portals have also been aggressively pursuing aggregation of local content (including Fwix, which we profiled last week).
But where is Topix? The pioneering local news aggregator graced the pages of Wired soon after its launch in 2002. Indeed, its potential was deemed so great that Gannett, Tribune and Knight Ridder paid $60 million for it in 2005, expecting it to play a key role in the future of local news.
Since then, however, Topix has kept a relatively low profile. Most of its founders have moved on, and the site no longer represents the latest innovation in local search.
Yet, Topix lives on, and rather well, too. It aggregates content from 50,000 sources; publishes 20,000 local pages; and its usage is greater than ever with nine million unique visitors, thanks to partnerships with such publishers as ESPN, AOL/MapQuest, Earthlink and others. Sixty percent of its traffic comes from destination and partner traffic, while 40 percent comes from SEO. The site also receives 125,000 comments a day.
While CEO Chris Tolles won’t confirm that the site is making a small profit, he says the site earns enough to support a sales staff. There are also ad partnerships with AdSense, Yext, Trulia, SimplyHired and others.
To Tolles, a co-founder of the company who has been running it since 2007, the long-term challenge for Topix and other aggregator sites is to figure out what the ultimate product becomes. Aggregating news will never be enough, he says. “And we have 10x the usage of any other aggregators. Local news is a great driver as a seed for online engagement but it plateaus.” Indeed, discussion – not news– is now driving the majority of the site’s traffic and engagement.
Angry Tea Party types and other passionate citizen play a big role in such commentary. “People with a large stake in local issues – both big and small – are the ones driving the commentary,” says Tolles. “It’s passion that drives things.”
Many of these people live in smaller communities outside of the media mainstream, adds Tolles. Roughly 45 percent of the site’s usage comes from such communities, which typically don’t have daily newspapers, making Topix the substitute local news provider.
Ultimately, “Success, for us, hinges upon getting people to the site via the Web and mobile – which now represents 10 percent of usage “and a huge opportunity,” says Tolles. A good portion of that audience needs to become participants in the forums, and then we can “make money off of that set of interactions.”
Topix has received a letter from over 20 attorney generals because it’s forum section in each town and city is nothing but pure trash. For instance, google any place like Pasadena, California, Pikeville, Kentucky topix and the list goes on. The forum section is unmoderated which means countless people including doctors, teachers,preachers, and other innocent people are often slandered. I have seen people called pedofiles and worse and topix profits from this hatred. One day someone is going to get killed over this site. If you want a topic removed, you have to pay basically twenty dollars for them to review it quickly with no guarantee it will be removed. The site allows slander, defamation, and libel which the last time I checked are criminal offenses. There is no filter system, they won’t post IP’s, and you don’t even have to register for the site meaning no one is safe. Pictures of children have been posted before and horrible things said. Chris Tolles in many interviews as justified the fact that this site allows racist comments, antireligious comments, and anyone can have their life destroyed by it and sees no problem with it. Even more appalling is some of its owners include the Gannett Corporation, The McClatchy Grop, and The Tribune Company, who all claim they are reputable news companies. How can you be reputable when you are even more trashy than the National Inquirer? Absolutely horrible.
The problem is Topix has destroyed what Chris Tolles claims they are supposed to be doing. Many good former users of that site have been ran off by the insane number of trolls on many of the forums. Because Topix has chosen not to require registration and moderation it is basically nothing more than a cyberbullying site. Just yesterday we learned of another suicide because of cyberbullying. People don’t understand what freedom of speech is and the abuse is out of control. I have spoken to a couple of newspapers that I like looking at and they use the Topix system and can’t stand how Topix does not require registration. When you have as many forums as Topix has (too many and that is part of the problem. With no human moderation or very little it is too big to keep up with) registration and moderation is a must. Topix reputation continues to go down with people who treat others with respect and want to comment on real news not bullying a private citizen or attacking children.
I am not going to take a personal potshot at the CEO of Topix because that is what occurs on Topix by the second. I am going to simply say that Topix needs to rethink it’s business ethics. Cyberbullying is a very serious issue and when you have a business there is a responsibility that comes with that. You just simply cannot have a company that does not have measures to help with this problem which include registration, moderation, and the elimination of certain forums like the human sexuality one. Users need to be held accountable if their conduct crosses the line. Would it be acceptable to Topix if there were no laws in this country? That is what Topix is a lawfree society and you just can’t have that.
I really think people are fed up, I know someone set up a website at http://toxictopix.webs.com that some of you might be interested in. Speaking personally I just hope that Topix develops a sense of conscience.