Topix reinvents itself as citizen journalist site

Topix is reinventing itself from a software-based news aggregator site to a citizen journalist hub where anyone can submit news and photos and sign up to be a volunteer editor selecting featured stories.

The site also has redesigned its interface to include more and bigger graphics, and has moved its domain from .net to .com as part of a relaunch set for Monday.

Topix is following the user-powered models of the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Open Directory Project (ODP) of Web links in which volunteers are responsible for creating and editing entries. Topix will avoid the spam problem that sites like Digg have by requiring people to sign up with their real names, said Rich Skrenta, chief executive officer. Skrenta is co-founder of the ODP.

Anyone can submit local news by ZIP code through the Web site or from their cell phone. The citizen journalist idea came to executives after they unearthed hidden in the site's forums a posting from a Texas Minuteman of his first-person experience patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border, something that wasn't published anywhere else, Skrenta said.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, which launched as a mainstream news aggregation site in 2004, hit a plateau last year. 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.

"We spent three years building up the audience," Skrenta said. "Now we can give people a microphone?The problem was we were a read-only news site."

[Sweetest_One]

Topix is not doing a very good job of running these forums you can take a look at the London Kentucky Topix forum it is nothing but filth. And when you complain about offensive or vulgar posts it can take days to have them removed.

[Sweetest_One]

Topix is not doing a very good job of running these forums you can take a look at the London Kentucky Topix forum it is nothing but filth. And when you complain about offensive or vulgar posts it can take days to have them removed.

[onsomelevel]

Some of these forums may seem out there? But you should see some of the forums designed by people outraged with their local law officials in the state of navada. I found a great site that has a membership of people so upset with their law system there that they made a site all obout nevada corruption. <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://nevadacorruptions.proboards83.com/index.cgi" target="_newWindow">http://nevadacorruptions.proboards83.com/index.cgi</a> the site is new and only up for about 2 and a half weeks or so, and has already gained over 60 plus users, and over 150 topics.
If you can handle a few cus words due to the extreme frustration of the people posting? I believe you will find the site informative and educational.

[onsomelevel]

While visiting the nevada corruptions site I found another very interesting, and informative site called norbits. <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://noelwaters.blogspot.com" target="_newWindow">http://noelwaters.blogspot.com</a> When I read the information on that site? I was floored. These district attorney's and a couple of judges sound like they belong in jail or prison.
What are these people doing to the residents of nevada?

[onsomelevel]

The norbit site may link a killer from reno, to a killer in a couple of other cities?

[karmath61]

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.
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Ancil

<a href="http://www.alcoholaddiction.org/kentucky" rel="dofollow">Kentucky Alcohol Addiction Treatment</a>

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.alcoholaddiction.org/kentucky" target="_newWindow">Kentucky Alcohol Addiction Treatment</a>

[abhi5885]

www.watchmovie.co.in

THIS one?s a delicious rom com that has you smiling and grinning with its rib-tickling battle of the sexes that rages on and on?.Until the waves begin to break, the stars begin toshine.

Ashton Kutcher is the archetypal loser who can?t hold on to his job, even when he works for his dad. Cameron Diaz is the kick-ass Wall Street analyst who ends up getting dumped by her I-me-myself boyfriend. The depressed duo meet in Vegas, get drunk, get married, win a million dollar lottery and realise they must remain married for six months at least, if they want a share of the prize money. Obviously, an impossible task, specially when Kutcher has awful toilet habits and Cameron is a stickler for neatness and niceties. But in the midst of their bickering and brawl, it?s the marriage counsellor who actually hits the nail on head: Individually, they are atrocious; together they are super!

A breezy comedy, the film crackles with some great chemistry between the lead pair and makes merry with the evergreen theme of Martian men and Venus women battling it out for equilibrium and ever after.

[defAtt]

Nevadins are not the only ones fed up with corruption, apparently a Hells Angel is too...he lashes out at the former governor of NY in this interview I ran across:
http://www.americanrider.info/Articles_and_News.html
interesting read....

[caresaboutpeople]

It needs to reinvent itself again. Because that company has taken the lowroad, it now has very little news and is nothing but a coward site for cyberbullies. The forums are awful in many communities with the topics being about incest, who is sleeping with who and illegal drug sales. It is a haven for sexual predators and Topix is making money off of hatred. When you have a company that has unmoderated forums and does not require registration that is what you ultimately get, pure trash. There is not a worst site on the internet when it comes to cyberbullying.

[motionbarrier]

There is a growing number of suicide posts on the Topix site along with brutal attacks. There needs to be some kind of real moderation and a sign up system.