MSNBC Acquires Breakingnews.com

Purchase comes after last months pick up of @BreakingNews Twitter feed

By Marisa Guthrie -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/5/2010 11:41:23 AM

MSNBC Digital Network formally announced its acquisition of the URL www.breakingnews.com. The announcement comes on the heels of the cable news services acquisition last month of @BreakingNews, the Twitter feed of BNONews.com. As one of the most popular breaking news feeds on Twitter, the acquisition of @BreakingNews has given MSNBC an additional 1.6 million followers while the network's own breaking news Twitter account (@msnbc_breaking) has less than 50,000.

"We know that people want news in different ways in varying circumstances," Charlie Tillinghast, president of the MSNBC Digital Network, said in a statement.  "Not everyone wants news surrounded by commentary or features.  Our goal as a news organization is to provide the most relevant experiences to satisfy distinct needs.  Hard and fast breaking news is currently an underserved market.  With www.breakingnews.com we can now provide the optimal solution."

BNO News monitors "official and unofficial news sources." It also has an iPhone app and provides e-mail alerts. "BNO News broke the deadly 2009 L'Aquila earthquake in Italy within six minutes, faster than any other news source," according to the BNO News web site.

MSNBC is not the only television news provider to take over an established Twitter feed. Last April, CNN acquired @CNNBrk, a Twitter feed that linked to the top stories on CNN.com.