Major newspaper publishers buy a piece of online news site

From Pittsburg Post-Gazette: Three newspaper publishers each bought a quarter share of Topix.net, a technology company that caters to 1.4 million monthly users as of last month by compiling and sorting news articles according to topic and location from different Internet sources. Its founders will keep the remaining 25% stake. Gannett Co., Knight Ridder Inc. and Tribune Co. will link to Topix on the Web sites belonging to the local newspapers that they own nationwide as part of the deal. Although users of Topix, which started just more than a year ago, are not as many as the 5.9 million users Google News had last month, it still proved to be lucrative this past December. The company grossed around $1 million in annual revenues, primarily from advertising. The new investors will likewise “allow Topix to sell online advertising from their (news) sites.”