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Topix.net finds niche with local news

By Michael Bazeley
Knight Ridder Newspapers

	RICK E. MARTIN / SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS Rich Skrenta is the founder of Topix.net, a Palo Alto, Calif., company that gathers articles from local newspapers, TV Web sites and other sources around the country. Stories are automatically sorted among 150,000 different categories.
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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, Calif., 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.

"Every TV station, news sites, college papers, online police blotters ... basically, anything that has value we're trying to slurp," said Michael Markson, vice president for business affairs.

The company is making a play for some of the billions of dollars in local advertising dollars that analysts expect to move online as more people search for local businesses and services on the Web.

But Topix is entering an area that's long been the province of local TV stations and newspapers. Some media experts said Topix will face an uphill battle attracting users — and advertisers — in hundreds or thousands of markets.

"I wish them luck," said Rusty Coats, director of new media for MORI Research in Minneapolis and a former online editor. "It's a tough nut to crack, this whole online news thing."

No reporters

Unlike traditional online news sites, Topix has no reporters or editors. Instead, its computers monitor more than 3,000 news sources throughout the day. Using artificial-intelligence algorithms, computers scan story content and categorize it by geography and subject matter.

The site boasts 150,000 categories, meaning followers of natural-gas news get their own page of stories, as do bird watchers and Ford Explorer enthusiasts.

The Topix algorithms are smart enough to discern metaphors and to place phrases and words in their proper context, Skrenta said. A story that mentions that something has "aged like a fine wine" probably would not end up on the Topix wine page.
 
The Topix home page links to thousands of U.S. cities and towns. But users also can type in their ZIP codes and be served a page of local headlines.

"I don't need more news on Iraq," said Skrenta, who co-founded the Open Directory Project, a human-edited Web directory, in the 1990s. "That's everywhere. That's a commodity. What's not a commodity is news about the Sunnyvale mall. That's what I want. That's our mission."

Some story choices will delight users, pointing them to articles they might otherwise miss. Vin Crosbie, a Connecticut media consultant, said his tests of Topix often produced more interesting lists of stories than local newspaper Web sites, in part because it gathers news from so many sources.

"I think there would be an interest in this," Crosbie said, "and I think if you can provide somebody with a quick one-screen view of what's happening, there's a market for this. They don't have a local flavor, but if there's enough local news, they don't need that."

But the site's automated news judgment may baffle some. On a recent afternoon, the Topix home page carried no mention of the two biggest stories that day — the Spain terrorist bombing and the California Supreme Court decision to halt gay marriages in San Francisco.

The San Jose, Calif., news page featured a story from the Baha'i World News Service about a group of touring singers. The local angle? There wasn't one. But the story had a San Jose, Philippines, dateline that apparently confused the Topix algorithm.

Localized Web search — where people go online to find news, restaurants, movie listings and other nearby services — is expected to be one of the new frontiers in online searching. But people are not yet entirely accustomed to going online for local news, Coats said. Studies show that many still turn to their newspaper first.

"National news is becoming a great online play," Coats said, "but they're not associating online with local news as much. People go online for breaking news, and a lot of people just don't associate local news with breaking news."

Skrenta thinks people eschew the Web for local news because they think they can't find it there, or they don't want to visit the multiple small news Web sites that serve all their local communities.

"To monitor everything in my town, and to keep track of something I'm interested in, say search-engine technology, I'm visiting six newspaper Web sites and 25 others for technology," he said. "This is an area where technology can step in and help."

Encouraging new habits

Topix's biggest challenge may be persuading people to break their ties with their favorite local news sites. Studies show that for the majority of people who do go online for local news, their newspaper is the first choice. That mostly is because they know the brand name, said Steve Yelvington, who works for the online wing of the Morris Newspaper chain.

"This would be a great tool if you were looking for something on the Web and you didn't know where to go," Yelvington said. "But if I'm in Augusta (Ga.), I'm probably already one of the registered users of augustachronicle.com."

That pattern may be shifting in Skrenta's favor, however. According to a new MORI study, online news readers are visiting newspaper Web sites less and turning to Google as a "trusted brand."

Skrenta thinks that can happen with Topix, too.

"I think it's a matter of getting the word out and providing a good experience," Skrenta said. "People need tools to help them manage all that information that's out there, and that's what we offer."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company