Web site sees untapped market for delivering local news

By Michael Bazeley
Knight Ridder News Service

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, 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, including the San Jose Mercury News and its parent company, Knight Ridder, and The Advertiser and its parent, Gannett Co. Inc. 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."

Unlike traditional online news sites, Topix has no reporters or editors. Instead, its computers monitor more than 3,000 breaking-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 home page links to thousands of U.S. cities and towns. But users can also type in their ZIP codes and be served a page of local headlines.

Some story choices will delight users, pointing them to articles they might otherwise miss. The San Jose news page, for example, recently carried a story about the Los Gatos-based DVD rental company Netflix, even though it was published by the Washington Times, a newspaper 3,000 miles away.

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

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."