breakingnews.com Breaks News of its Sale to MSNBC

By Kyle Austin

January 5th, 2010

While it’s not on par with the drama of Rupert Murdoch’s coup of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal (so 2007), news today that MSNBC is following up its purchase of the breakingnews twitter handle, with the acquisition of breakingnews.com, may be better sign of the state of media as we enter a new decade.

Just ask the folks that now work under Rupert at the Wall Street Journal. It’s no longer about the information provided or the depth of that insight, it’s about who breaks it first. All of that making an operation like breakingnews.com so valuable in the age of real-time search; and entrepreneurs like 19 yr old Michael van Poppel the media moguls of the next decade.

In their release, Charlie Tillinghast, president of msnbc Digital Network noted, “Not everyone wants news surrounded by commentary or features. Hard and fast breaking news is currently an underserved market.  With www.breakingnews.com we can now provide the optimal solution.”

Although MSNBC will now work to drive traffic to the breakingnews.com Website, the twitter handle is currently more valuable in-terms of influence. The breakingnews Twitter handle has more than 1.5 million followers, while Quancast reports that breakingnews.com had roughly 67,000 U.S. visitors in November of 2009. Of course, actual terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Entry Filed under: Mainstream Media,Newspapers