Topix is a news aggregator which categorizes news stories by topic and geography. It was created by the founders of the Open Directory Project. In March 2005, the Knight Ridder (later taken over by The McClatchy Company), Tribune Company and Gannett media companies purchased a 75% share of the company[1]. On April 1, 2007, it acquired the topix.com domain name and invited volunteers to edit the topics of their choice, on top of over 100 journalists and editors from various newspapers already signed up.[2]
Topix has gone on to create a community news editing platform, and popular forum system, allowing users to comment on news articles and the goings on of local communities.[3]
Services
- Local news pages for US and International Cities
- News pages categorized by subject
- News & Blog search engine
- Forum system
- Community news editing platform.
- Blog page featuring popular blogs
- Local Classified Ads
- Local news feeds for web portals such as CNN's.
Criticism
Because of the size of the forums and the fact that one does not need to officially register, loading pages can be a problem, as well as alternate accounts.citation needed Some complain that some forums are not moderated and that trolling/flaming is a commonplace on some parts of the forum.who?
Privacy Issue
A post to the Topix forum from a non-registered user will show the geographic location of the user's I.P. address (often the actual town the user is in), to the left of the post. If a registered user changes their zip code of their location in their profile to ensure better privacy, the geographic location of the user's I.P. (called "ISP Location" on the site) will still show on the left, under the town of the new zip code. This makes anonymity difficult, particularly if the user lives in a very small town, and could increase identity theft. And users have no way to edit or delete the post once this information becomes exposed.
See also
External links
References
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