Newspaper-owned Topix.com reported today that their…
number of daily, active(1) local forums on its site now exceeds the total number of daily newspapers(2) in the United States for the first time. Topix local forums were first launched in December 2005 as part of the Topix’s broader user-generated forum functionality. Since that time, Topix local forums have grown at a rapid pace, reflecting Topix’s ability to meet pent-up demand for local news and to successfully generate local engagement and online participation.
Ranked a top 20 news site(3) since June 2007, Topix draws more than 12 million unique visitors every month and 70,000 forum posts per day. Topix local forums, which span all 32,500 U.S. zip codes, give local residents, especially those located in rural areas that are underserved by major media outlets, an opportunity to discuss and share the news that matters to them. Beyond daily local forum activity, Topix has generated user activity across 20,000 local forums with 16 million forum posts and 3 million users across the site.
(1) “Active” defines user forums with at least one post per day
(2) 1,437 Editor & Publisher (http://web.naa.org/thesource/14.asp )
(3) ComScore, -June, 2007
So… 32,000 or so local forums? And 1,500 of them have at least one post/day? About 5% of them are active? Do most of those 70,000 posts/day fit into the 1,500 active local forums… 40-50 posts/local forum/day?
About 30 of Front Porch Forum‘s 130 neighborhood forums have at least one posting/day… that’s in metro Burlington, VT, population 150,000. Our average neighborhood forum averages one posting every two days.
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more