"Total local stories per day 22,293
Number of populated US ZIP codes 32,500

We started by trying to add more sources. We added government, weather and industry sources, and then we added 25,000 blogs to the mix to see what we'd get. And, pretty much, they still didn't provide the breadth of coverage around local news, especially around small towns.

Don't like the news? Make some of your own!"

-- Topix.net CEO Chris Tolles, commenting on Google's rollout of GLocal, a similar set of l ocal news services--cept the G's are limited to aggregated feeds, and Topix has UGV forums.