Topix Announces Forum Partnership With MediaNews Group

Web's Largest News Community Expands Its Mission to be the Nationwide

Platform for Local Conversation

    PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Topix
 (http://www.topix.com), the largest news community on the Web, today
 announced an agreement to become the preferred online forums and article
 commenting provider for MediaNews Group, publisher of 61 daily newspapers,
 including the Denver Post and San Jose Mercury News. In addition, Topix has
 signed forums partnerships with GoErie.com, Zap2It.com, KOB.com, and
 CapitalTimes.com.
 
     MediaNews Group has already launched forums on several newspaper sites
 in New England, including LowellSun.com, SentinelandEnterprise.com,
 ConnecticutPost.com, and NewsTimes.com. Within the next few weeks, Topix
 plans to launch an additional 30-40 MediaNews Group sites that don't
 currently have a commenting system or that are migrating from another
 platform. The Topix forums are designed for simple integration, and the
 migration of the MediaNews Group sites is expected to be complete by early
 2008.
 
     "The goal at Topix is to power local voice and conversation in every
 single city and town across America," said Chris Tolles, Topix CEO. "By
 partnering with newspaper companies like MediaNews Group, we accelerate
 fulfillment of that mission through a federated, networked commenting
 system which provides synergies between every partner in the network. We
 plan to actively expand partnerships in 2008."
 
     Topix has built the only web-scalable forum platform, which balances
 algorithmic and human moderation -- as well as speed and stability -- to
 provide hyper-local participation on a nationwide network of sites. Topix
 partners are successfully building engaged audiences: IndyStar.com and
 Sun-Sentinel.com, for example, have each surpassed one million forum posts.
 Since the Topix forums launched less than two years ago, more than three
 million people have posted more than 18 million comments on the site --
 with participation at 80,000 comments a day.
 
     About Topix
 
     Topix is the leading news community on the Web, connecting people to
 the information and discussions that matter to them in every U.S. town and
 city. A Top 20 online news destination (comScore, October 2007), the
 company links news from 50,000 sources to 360,000 lively user-generated
 forums. Topix also works with the nation's major media companies to grow
 and engage their online audiences through forums, classifieds, publishing
 platforms and RSS feeds. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Topix LLC is a
 privately held company with investment from Gannett Co., Inc. ( GCI),
 The McClatchy Company ( MNI) and Tribune Company ( TRB). For
 more, visit http://www.topix.com.
 
 
 

SOURCE Topix