#Socialc20: Topix - All Politics is Local

Presented by Jonathan Ward, from TOPIX

Topix started off as a news aggregator and recently has developed more locally based forums.

For 2010 midterm election cycle, they set out to provide coverage on an unprecedented scale.

Gathered as much data as they could with 6-person staff.

They asked users to submit data.

Created forum views, thread widgets, elections page created unprecedented traffic around election days from all 50 states. A quarter of a million pageviews, majority of engagement came from small, rural towns.

In hindsight, they would have gathered the data earlier and expanded the entire campaign before Election Day.