Back in March, the 3 largest newspaper chains agreed to buy a majority share in Topix.net. Think of Topix.net as a cross between Google News and Google Local – they offer news from a variety of sources that is aggregated by geography. (Yes, they also do this same sort of thing by topic – e.g. Business, Technology, auto accidents, etc.).
We are now seeing some of the results of this deal. On most articles on the DesMoinesRegister.com (owned by Gannett, one of the 3 newspaper chains which purchased Topix.net), there is a box called “Related news from the Web”. This box pulls headlines from Topix.net based on keywords found in the article. It’s far from perfect, while you can usually get other related Des Moines or Iowa stories, you sometimes get stuff like this:
The reason you’re offered news stories from Bucklin, MO is because of this quote in the story (my emphasis added):
Bob Bucklin, who works nearby, said the naked lady is great art. “It does show the female form, but so what?” he said. “It’s not as offensive as a Calvin Klein ad or a Victoria’s Secret catalog.”
This is really an attempt by newspaper companies to divert ad revenue from Google AdWords to something they control – Topix.net. Newspapers are scared of both Google and eBay as these companies eat retail advertising revenues and classified advertising revenues.
And just like the above example, the technology is not perfect. In the January 2004 State of the Union, President Bush mentioned eliminating steroid use from baseball. As I was reading the transcript of the address on washingtonpost.com, I noticed the 3 Google AdWord ads at the bottom of the page; they were all for places to buy anabolic steroids on the net.
Nonetheless, I think you should give Topix.net a try. Their coverage of Des Moines is fun cause you get to see stuff about Des Moines that shows up at other news sources. But note, they direct all their links through Topix.net and spoof the displayed URL so they can track where you are going from Topix.net.
Post a Comment