Topix
About Topix
They started above a cheap trophy shop in Palo Alto and take what they knew about artifical intelligence from data mining and apply it to news. They have 400,000 different nodes they track news for. They started by building a news site and a community broke out. So they gave users the ability to create forums and message boards and did such with very little fanfare and now have over 4,000,000 posts on the site now. Then users were placing items for sale in the forums so Topix built a free classifieds section and now they have over 100,000 listings in their classifieds now.
The first time I knowingly spoke with someone from Topix was Jan 26, 2007 when I was briefed on a press release that was yet to be released. I spoke with Mike Markson, Topix’s VP of Business Development and the call was introduced via their PR firm Sutherland Gold Partners George O'Brien.
Topix.net was founded in 2002 with the specific mission of providing users the ability to quickly and easily find targeted news on the Internet. With thousands of news sources continually releasing stories twenty-four hours a day, finding relevant news can often be a time consuming task. For complete coverage, users are forced to visit many different sites and sift through a variety of stories that may or may not be relevant to them. Topix.net alleviates this problem by creating thousands of topically driven, specific news web pages and populating each of those pages with only news about that particular topic. So, whether you are interested in finding all the news about your community, or your company or industry or perhaps even your favorite team or celebrity, Topix.net provides an intuitive, easy way to find the targeted news that is relevant to you.
Background
The problems associated with cataloging the billions of pages available on the Internet are not new to the Topix.net team. Previously, several Topix.net founders created the Open Directory Project (originally called "NewHoo"), the first open development directory for the Internet, and now the largest human-edited web directory. This project is now a property of America Online and is the source from which many of the current web directories, including Google Directory, derive their information. While an open development solution is helpful, especially when it comes to an overall categorization of the various sites on the web, it does not address the one item that many users turn to the internet for: news. That is where Topix.net steps in.
With so much news from so many sources being continually released, categorizing each story consistently, efficiently and accurately is very difficult. Rather than rely on human editors for this task, Topix.net uses its proprietary technology. The Topix.net team has created artificial intelligence algorithms that continuously monitor breaking news from over 10,000 sources, 24 hours a day. These algorithms read every story as it is released and then categorize each one into one or more of the more the 360,000 'topix.net' pages that we created. Currently, the Topix.net web page inventory consists of separate pages for the 30,000 US cities and towns, 5,500 public company and industry verticals, 48,000 celebrities and musicians, 1,500 sports teams and personalities, and many, many more.
Methodology
To ensure proper placement of each story, the Topix.net categorization process is multi-faceted. For each story reviewed, the content of the story is geo-coded to determine where the event took place and/or the location of those involved in the story. It is then further categorized as to the subject matter involved. Once this categorization process has run, the story is then placed on the appropriate web-page(s). For instance, should a news source release a story about a speech Warren Buffet gives in San Jose, CA, our crawlers will read that story and then properly categorize it. As a result, the story will be available to users who access the San Jose, CA Topix.net page, as well those who access our Berkshire Hathaway page, and, depending on the magnitude of the story, perhaps the business page as well.
We believe that users of Topix.net will find locating the targeted news that matters to them to be easier than ever. So, pick your topix, get the news.
Topix News & Related Topix Stories
Topix Contact Info
T: (650) 461-8300
W: topix.net
B: blog.topix.net
A: 1001 Elwell Court Palo Alto CA 94303
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