Hey Media Company, Buy BNO News. Now. Really.

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Hey Media Company, Buy BNO News. Now. Really.

By now, there’s no need to repeat the backstory of Breaking News Online to the news junkies among us, especially those of us on Twitter and iPhone. If you do need the background, here’s the story. I was never a follower on Twitter, but I have been using its iPhone app ever since it launched in July. And with the new 1.1 version of the app, it has become even better with customization.

The kid from Netherlands is hands down eating everyone’s lunch when it comes to pushing out breaking news first, bar none. He and his team’s news judgment on what’s-really-important is impeccable. The nascent service has a lot more Twitter subscribers than almost all big news media companies, except maybe CNN and NYTimes. And now it is generating revenues through the paid iPhone app, and among the first to launch a subscription service on top of the paid app. It has also started syndicating its wire stories to some online pubs. List of its services is here.

Beyond its micro-news service, which essentially is about staying on top of worldwide news reports from other sources—and no small feat, it does that better than anyone—it has also started doing some original reports as well, most recently around the tsunami warnings in New Zealand, if I am remembering it right (it doesn’t archive the stories). And I feel I am a lot more informed about international developments than by reading or getting any other online/U.S. source. Sure, it is not groundbreaking original reporting like the NYT or BBC, and it is aggregating third parties, and it gets it wrong sometimes in the quest for speed, but that’s not the point of the service. The currency here is speed in a multiplatform environment, followed by news judgment. This is the web native news creature we all have been waiting for.

So Jon Miller, if you haven’t considered this already as part of your news consortium idea, here’s what you should do: e-mail the kid, or call him, catch the next flight to the Netherlands, and give him a buyout offer. It will be a lot better way to spend $5 million than the $5 million your company has spent hiring all these new hotshot execs for MySpace…

Rafat Ali

@rafatali Oct 10, 2009 2:47 AM ET

Posted In: Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Mergers & Acquisitions, Social Media, News Sharing, bno news

latest headlines

Justin

David—

So you're saying that MSM should just copy the BNO approach? Novel idea, but how come it hasn't been done yet?

Are the wire services so afraid of going against the grain? If so, why? The model is obviously fruitful.

http://thenewwaveplanner.com

Pete

I have an even better advice: buy twitscoop…

David Krug

I disagree. I wouldn't buy them. It's much cheaper to just hire a couple of interns and don't bound them with rules, turn them loose to run in an open newsroom. Pay them with promises that come with success. In time you will have success and they will have made a huge name for themselves. No need to spend millions to buy out this kid.

Stoyank

Nowadays all facebook applications are HOT (because people make money from them) every day are pulled out hundreds from them!

Thanks,
Stoyank
From
http://www.earth4energyrating.com/

Marshall Kirkpatrick

Did an interview with a tech geek at Red Cross national headquarters this week and he told me they are all subscribed to BNO on Twitter and their iPhones!

Thanks for linking to our write-up of the back story, Rafat. I *think* we're going to have the guys who built the BNO iphone app at our Real-Time Web Summit next week but we don't have anyone from PaidContent signed up yet! Would love to see you and your readers there. Info at http://readwriteweb.com/summit

Jon

The moment a media company goes anywhere near BNO the cost of the third party services they're monitoring are going to skyrocket

Justin

We all know this: In the age of rapid information (Twitter, the 24 hr news cycle, etc), we, the consumers, expect updates almost immediately after news breaks.

Bar none, no other outlet does this better than BNO, which regularly beats international news wires and cable networks.

While BNO's founders certainly are interested in building a financially successful product, there's also utter pride and bravado behind being (generally) the first to move a breaking story, and that's evident from updates in the founders' Twitter feeds.

Like Mr. Barnes said, continue to build your product, generate revenue, attract multiple investor rounds, and then when/if you find a responsible buyer, sell and advise.

Rick Burnes

To the kid in the Netherlands: Stay Independent. For a long time. Really.

In all seriousness, why should he except a buyout if he's making money and already has huge reach? Why does he want to join one of these big media co's that's stuck in the 20th century. He'll just end up banging his head against the wall in some directorship, mired in a political and cultural quagmire.

On his own he can figure out how to build a newer, more agile media company that creates more value for the world.