Topix goes all Web 2.0-ish.

“Topix is reinventing itself from a software-based news aggregator site to a citizen journalist hub where anyone can submit news and photos and sign up to be a volunteer editor selecting featured stories“

Rich Skrenta, the guy behind Topix, tells us the reason why:

” We took a hard look at ourselves last year. We had built up a strong local audience on the site, but a lot of it was SEO, and while users were clearly getting some value out of our product, we hadn’t made something that people really cared about. As cool a technical trick as our aggregated geolocalized news pages were, they actually pretty much sucked.“

It’s a great post. Honest. To the point. A lesson in how to rebuild a service, and make that service more relevant to the user base.

I think the new Topix looks great. It plays to its localized strengths, and they’ve delivered something that feels personalized, citizen driven, and unique.

Well done.