News gathering site Topix has relaunched with a new look and an updated focus on citizen journalism. The updated site will continue to build on its localized news success by inviting readers to read, discuss, and even edit local news stories. Topix also turned on the new site under the topix dot com domain, which the company purchased from a Canadian firm for one million dollars.

Topix CEO Rich Skrenta talked about the redesign on his blog. He said, “We had built up a strong local audience on the site, but a lot of it was SEO, and while users were clearly getting some value out of our product, we hadn’t made something that people really cared about.” Skrenta rejected suggestions that Topix should copy sites like MySpace or Digg before settling on the new design.