Topix.net Weblog

February 28, 2006

Topix.net @ SES NY, Year 3

by skrenta at 11:59 PM

My first SES show was for dmoz, back in 2000, before it got huge, and I love that show. The seedy mix of top-tier search engines, portals, evil SEO sharks, searchy schwag, and red-shirt throwaways from the DMA create a great vibe.

Mike and Chris took our new orange booth to the show [pic pending] and got to meet with some folks. I wish I could have been there.

SES NY: The Topix.net Approach To Web News
Mike McDonald cracked me up with the intro to his great write-up of our feature launches since December:

The first and most obvious change at Topix was a substantial redesign. I hesitate to say that their original design was ugly, but... now having hesitated appropriately, I'll say it; their old site was ugly. The new design is a marked improvement to put it mildly. As Chris put it, "we felt like we had a top quality news site, we just needed to look like one". Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all, but I doubt he's getting too many emails from folks complaining that they miss the old design.
...
The last major Topix development since our last meeting was easily the coolest as far as I'm concerned. They launched a really slick forum system. It's not a forum as you may be used to per se insofar as it covers a huge number of subjects...

(Mike's right, our old design was ugly.)

Newspapers Should Move Faster Part II
Greg Sterling has been giving us insightful comments about the news industry since he tolerated our analyst launch PR briefing in 2004.

The community content (comments) that Topix has is gold -- wouldn't the newspapers love to have that kind of participation on their sites?

More SES NY coverage: Search Engine Watch, seoroundtable, Technorati.