Topix is a local news aggregator and community forum. The company provides local news to CNN, Gannett, Tribune and McClatchy publishing, AOL and MyYahoo!
eMarketer spoke with Topix CEO Chris Tolles about what local news means to national brands, what user comments do for advertisers and how to deal with problem users in a growing community.
eMarketer: Aren't plenty of sites already providing local news?
Chris Tolles: Sure, for major metropolitan areas. But there are only about six local news stories a day in a typical local newspaper. Even with TV and radio, that's only about 22,000 local news stories a day—mostly about big cities.
That's fewer than the number of DMAs. So there aren't enough stories to provide good local news coverage for the 30,000 populated zip codes in the US.
This means that local news is also not a search problem.
eMarketer: Beyond just collecting the news, how do aggregator sites fit into the online news market?
Chris Tolles: They can provide a community and generate even more content. There are 100,000 comments posted everyday to Topix.com. Six out of 10 comments are not about stories; they're original content.
eMarketer: How does this affect marketers?
Chris Tolles: Local ads online are a huge opportunity. On a local news commentary-powered site, advertisers can be part of local community discussions. Those comments create ad inventory.
Brands need to create a differentiated story for themselves and connect with local audiences to get to feet on the street. These types of sites will be increasingly important to get people to make decisions with their feet.
For example, you don't Google for lunch, but a local news site at may serve a Quizno's ad in the comments section at 11 a.m.
eMarketer: Some advertisers worry about putting their brand up against potentially offensive user-generated content. How do you deal with trolls and other problem users?
Chris Tolles: AI kills the truly awful stuff before it's posted. We also have a full-time staff that monitors complaints.
We don't require registration, since that cuts down on the number of people willing to make posts. We've found that anonymous users post more than registered users. The tradeoff is worth it.
By contrast, newspapers will not deal with bad comments going up at all.
Advertisers need to get up in front of the community. Occasionally, brands will appear temporarily alongside awful comments.
Brands are comfortable with being posted next to commentary that's not pre-vetted, provided that there are working systems in place to manage and moderate that commentary, including effective takedown of content that violates the site's Terms of Service.
eMarketer: How long will it take brand managers to wholly buy into placing ads alongside user-generated content?
Chris Tolles: Right now leading-edge advertisers are there. It's at the early-adopter stage. Conservative brands will take five years.