Local news aggregator Fwix expands to 25 more cities
Fwix uses the ubiquitous-in-Silicon-Valley concept of information feeds, exemplified by sites like Facebook and FriendFeed. But somewhat differently than those sites, it takes feeds from other sites around the web, like Craigslist and Yelp, and aggregates them based on what city you’re in. Menlo Park, Calif.-based Fwix only launched on Thursday, for a few major cities. But it claims to be getting decent traffic and is rolling out to 25 more cities today.
Fwix sees itself as something entirely different than what Facebook or other feed-using social networks offer. That’s a good thing, because years ago, Facebook tried out Network pages that showed you what was happening in your local network. Facebook axed these pages eventually, apparently due to low demand. However, Facebook’s redesigned site lets you filter your news feed for things like Events, based on your network or on what your friends are attending.
Facebook users’ apparent lack of interest in news from their citywide networks doesn’t seem to bode well for Fwix, but co-founder Darian Shirazi — a former Facebook employee himself — disagrees.
He says Fwix won’t meet the same fate because it’s designed around communities, not friend groups. Facebook lets you import feeds of information from other sites, but it doesn’t aggregate this information in one central place for everyone to see. Fwix aggregates 3 million items, delivering around 2,000 items to city-specific versions of the site. There are also a couple other features that let whole communities interact together: You can “like” an item or comment on it.
While still small, the site is seeing users spend an average of eight minutes on it. Los Angeles is the most popular city, the company says.
Sites rolling out today include: Austin, Madison, Houston, Seattle, Las Vegas, Washington DC, Baltimore, Miami, Portland (OR), San Diego, Denver, Phoenix, Dallas, Orlando, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Providence, New Orleans and New Haven.
The company is self-funded.
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About the Author, Eric Eldon
Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.