Fwix Taps Into Facebook's Open Graph To Socialize Hyperlocal News Aggregator

Fwix, a news site that offers a stream of hyperlocal, realtime news by location, is tapping into Facebook’s recently launched Open Graph API to socialize content on its platform. As we wrote in our initial coverage of Facebook’s announcement of the API, it aims to add a layer of social connections and instant personalization based on people’s interests and “likes” on every single page on the Web.

Users on Fwix can now like any piece of content on the platform. And readers can customize news feeds for any level – by place, topic or Facebook friend – and then connect with others interested in the same topics. Other readers’ interests and comments that are similar to yours will also show up in your own news feed, as well as social interactions around news, suggested topics and more, aiming to create an ecosystem of real-time local and hyperlocal news.

Fwix aggregates news articles and blog posts that are relevant to a certain region (the site now features support for over 80 cities in the United States and Canada). To do this, the Fwix team selects news sources and blogs that it thinks are related to each city, and also uses automated algorithms to determine when other content might also be relevant. Fwix has also recently tweaked its algorithm and offerings to include “nearby” local content features. So content on Fwix displays relationships between both topics and nearby location. For example, after reading a story about a robbery that took place in the Mission district of San Francisco, you’ll be able to find any other crime and or stories about the Mission neighborhood.

While Fwix previously offered Facebook Connect, these social features represent a much deeper and meaningful integration with Facebook, says founder Darian Shirazi. Fwix just inked a deal with The New York Times Company to deliver local and hyperlocal content across the publisher’s properties and launched its application for the iPad, which is now a Top 15 news app for the tablet device.