untangling_the_web

DOClD: 4046925
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Topix.net
http://www.topix.net!
Topix gained a lot of attention and new users during the past year. Here are some of
its features:
~ It indexes more than 10,000 news sources (mostly US, but not all).
~ It has more than 360,000 topically based pages (including world news pages
on virtually every country).
~ It offers a "live" newsfeed of the news stories Topix is indexing at the moment.
~ It has a large searchable database.
~ It offers perhaps the best local US news aggregation and search available
(I've not seen better).
Toplx tweaked its news ranking algorithm during 2006, producing much better
results for top stories than in the past. Topix also added two new features during
2006 that have elevated it at least in one regard.'You are supposed to be able to
search using capitalization, which has sadly become a rare search feature. The only
problem is that Topix's new feature is not working properly or consistently. I tried a
number of variations and the results were inconsistent. For example, a search on
[ICon] contrasted with [icon] or [Icon] worked, but searches on [ZIP] [zip] [Zip] were
unpredictable. This feature needs more work.
However, the archive function works just fine. Here is a search for Hurricane
Katrina, and you can clearly see by the blue graph the peaks and valleys of news
stories on Katrina. In order to see the news from earlier times, users simply need to
click anywhere along the timeline:
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