Topix was an American Internet media company. Topix LLC, the controlling company, had its headquarters in
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...
.
Topix began as a
news aggregator
In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, podc ...
" which categorizes news stories by topic and geography. In the last few years, Topix changed its focus from aggregation and curation, to content creation. Topix removed the human sexuality topic, which was one of its most popular topics, from its forums on June 26, 2016. The Topix local news and forums were shut down on December 20, 2018. Topix launched new entertainment-focused slideshow and quiz-based sites named Stars and Offbeat in 2015, and has continued to launch additional new sites since. Topix was in the top 100 largest US-based websites according to Quantcast.
In 2019,
Publishers Clearing House
Publishers Clearing House (PCH) is a direct marketing company that markets merchandise and magazine subscriptions with sweepstakes and prize-based games.
It was founded in 1953 by Harold Mertz to replace door-to-door magazine subscription sales ...
acquired Topix and its website was redirected to pch.com.
History
It was co-founded in 2004 by
Bryn Dole
Bryn is a Welsh word meaning hill. It may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
See also UK location England
* Bryn, Greater Manchester
** Bryn (ward), an electoral ward in Wigan
** Bryn railway station
* Cornwall
Wales
* Bryn, an electoral di ...
,
Rich Skrenta
Richard J. Skrenta Jr. (born June 6, 1967) is an American computer programmer and Silicon Valley entrepreneur who created the web search engine blekko.Arrington, Michael (2008-01-02). "The Next Google Search Challenger: Blekko". TechCrunch, 2 Janu ...
,
Bob Truel Bob Truel is a computer programmer. He met Rich Skrenta in ninth grade in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania and has since co-founded several Internet ventures with him and others, including DMOZ with Bryn Dole, Chris Tolles, and Jeremy Wenokur in 1998, N ...
Open Directory Project
DMOZ (from ''directory.mozilla.org'', an earlier domain name, stylized in lowercase in its logo) was a multilingual open-content directory of World Wide Web links. The site and community who maintained it were also known as the Open Directory ...
. In March 2005, the
Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by McClatchy on June 27, 2006, it was the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspaper brand ...
(later taken over by
The McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company, commonly referred to as simply McClatchy, is an American publishing company incorporated under Delaware's General Corporation Law and based in Sacramento, California. It operates 29 daily newspapers in fourteen states and ...
),
Tribune Company
Tribune Media Company, also known as Tribune Company, was an American multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
Through Tribune Broadcasting, Tribune Media was one of the largest television broadcasting companies, owning 39 ...
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. September 19, 2011 2 Retrieved on September 20, 2011. Topix's main user base consists of posters from cities and towns in the United States. Chris Tolles, the chief executive of Topix LLC since June 2007, said that Topix is very popular in "the feud states".Sulzberger, A. G. "In Small Towns, Gossip Moves to the Web, and Turns Vicious." ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. September 19, 2011 1 Retrieved on September 20, 2011.
Sites
Topix has the following category-specific sites:
*Stars (Celebrity and Entertainment)
*Offbeat (Pop Culture and Humor)
*Wellnest (Health and Wellness)
*Sideline (Sports)
*Blackbeat (Black Entertainment)
*Parenthood (Parenting)
*Pawsome (Pets)
*Estrellas (Spanish Language Entertainment)
*Rewind (History)
*Tempo (Music)
*Passport (Travel)
Team
Management Team at Topix
*Chris Tolles - Co-founder and CEO
*Steve Rubinstein - COO
*Mike Sawka - CTO and VP Engineering
Controversies
A. G. Sulzberger of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote that "The same Web sites created as places for candid talk about local news and politics are also hubs of unsubstantiated gossip, stirring widespread resentment in communities where ties run deep, memories run long and
anonymity
Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Some writers have argued that namelessness, though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity. The important idea he ...
is something of a novel concept". He added that "Whereas online negativity seems to dissipate naturally in a large city, it often grates like steel wool in a small town where insults are not easily forgotten". Various local governments censured the Topix forums. Many lawsuits resulted from content posted on Topix.
On February 3, 2009, Mark and Rhonda Lesher filed a lawsuit against anonymous posters on Topix.com. According to their petition, over 1,700 defamatory statements were made about them by anonymous posters, resulting in 2,568 allegations of defamation and libel. Although Topix was not a party to the lawsuit, it was forced to reveal the IP addresses of the posters. The jury awarded the Leshers $13.8 million dollars against several Topix posters but the court later overturned the award.
Initially Topix charged money to people who requested that Topix expedite the removal of negative posts. After thirty
state attorneys general
The state attorney general in each of the 50 U.S. states, of the federal district, or of any of the territories is the chief legal advisor to the state government and the state's chief law enforcement officer. In some states, the attorney genera ...
protested, Topix stopped charging. Jack Conway, the
Kentucky Attorney General
The Attorney General of Kentucky is an office created by the Kentucky Constitution. (Ky.Const. ยง 91). Under Kentucky law, they serve several roles, including the state's chief prosecutor (KRS 15.700), the state's chief law enforcement officer (K ...
, said the charging scheme "smacked of having to pay a fee to get your good name back".
On March 20, 2012, online gossip was the subject of a story called "Innocent Man's Life Destroyed by Anonymous Topix Poster" on ''
Good Morning America
''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. Th ...
''. Topix CEO Chris Tolles was interviewed for the piece.