Breaking News Online: How One 19-Year Old Is Shaking Up Online Media
Michael van Poppel used to be like a lot of young people, trawling the internet for interesting news about the world. Just like many others have considered doing, he created a place where he could post the most interesting news he finds, as fast as he can. Today he's one of the most-watched movers and shakers in online news media - and he's not yet twenty years old.
In September 2007, when seventeen years old and living in the Netherlands, van Poppel decided to launch a news aggregation business called Breaking News Online. Months later, somehow, he came into possession of a full video of an Osama Bin Laden statement before any of the major news outlets had it, and sold it to Reuters.
That was just the first strange chapter in a very strange story leading up to today, when van Poppel announced plans to release a push iPhone app for his fast-growing Breaking News Online network next month. A 19-year old announced that he would be releasing an iPhone app in a month and many people around the world took pause and noticed. How did this all happen? Asking that question illuminates some of the most interesting trends on the web today.
Why BNO is Exciting
Three days after van Poppel sold the Bin Laden tape to Reuters, he said in an interview with Inside Cable News that he'd originally reached out to CNN's iReport with the tape. They were unresponsive. He then tried to contact a number of other news outlets before connecting with and making a deal with Reuters. Breaking News Online had already launched months earlier, but the experience must have underlined van Poppel's belief that he could find, select and push out news faster and better than other larger media outlets. The experience probably provided some funds for that vision as well.
Since then, BNO has added editors in the United States, Ireland and Mexico to its team. The team watches news wires closely for important updates, exercises their own brand of editorial judgment in deciding what to push out through their various distribution channels and then they push it out fast.
BNO has made the most of a number of different media technologies. The team is best known for its presence on Twitter - at 800k, BNO has four times more followers than ABC News and twice as many as Newsweek. BNO also makes extensive use of RSS, email, FriendFeed and now promises an iPhone app leveraging the phone's brand new push messaging sometime next month.
In a media landscape that some argue has transcended the old models of scarcity and physical distribution - it could be efficient research infrastructure, high-quality editorial judgment and building online channels of distribution that make the difference. Or, as blogger Mike Bracco put it on The Next Web today, "Unlike their mainstream counterparts the service does a great job of only reporting news worthy of the 'breaking' label. I can attest to this as well as their ability to deliver breaking news before anyone else. I have found them to consistently report news 10-15 minutes before it hits mainstream websites or blogs and well before it is ever reported on TV." In the news game today, being best and first by minutes means it's your link that gets passed along. Breaking News Online is excelling at that game with its short, quick updates.
On the Other Hand...
Now BNO says it will enter the world of the iPhone in August. Every major media outlet is building its own iPhone app but few if any others are charging money for them. The BNO app will cost $1.99 to download. Even crazier, BNO says it will charge an ongoing subscription fee of 99 cents per month for breaking news updates.
All of this is fascinating, but isn't BNO still just an aggregator? In traditional media outlets "aggregator" is a dirty word (unless they are the ones doing the aggregation). In fact, Breaking News Online does very little original reporting. The company is going to monetize its research flow, editorial judgment, distribution channels...and links to other peoples' content. If BNO is successful, there is a real risk of original content publishers objecting to the fact that someone else has found a way to make money off of (links sending traffic to) their content.
Imagine if the Huffington Post charged money for an iPhone app that pushed links to its pages aggregating content from elsewhere. Major media companies would blow a gasket. Ariana Huffington told those companies at a Congressional hearing on saving newspapers this Spring that if she sends them millions of readers and they can't figure out how to monetize that traffic - that's their problem. Some companies gasping for air didn't find that convincing and insist that aggregators hand over some of the only money that anyone in the media ecosystem has figured out how to make online. Admittedly, if the professional reporters on the ground aren't getting paid - then there's going to be less content for aggregators to aggregate.
BNO says it doesn't think of itself as primarily an aggregator, van Poppel says it will do even more original reporting as the company expands.
The internet is changing everything and it's changing itself fast enough that it's a challenge to keep track of it all. Recurring, mobile micropayments for near real-time aggregated news content delivered using push delivery? It's hard to think of a sentence that packs more hot-button concepts into such a small space. That's pretty impressive for a 19 year old.
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Nice to hear what I always believe in: True leadership isn't in front of you, but usually 20 years or so behind you!
One of my FAVORITE Twitter accounts to follow.
Great source of news for anyone blogging on trends or breaking news. Congrats on the "success" so far!
Bravo, Mr. Poppel. I still don't understand how you do it, but you do it right.
What? Just 19? And yet I've had first word on news stories from BNO over other Twitter sources I Follow.
In some instances, it's been the only word. When the Staten Island ferry recently rammed into its dock, BNO had that while my local TV stations and radio stations had zero.
And then MSM wonders why new competitors can easily trounce them?
If you really look at this he didnt come up with anything new. What did he do? Copy Digg?
Well, if @BreakingNews is paying the AP and other wire services and just happens to be better at aggregating/tweeting breaking news better than anyone else, more power to 'em!
Another great story, Marshall!
Bryan | @BryanPerson
Been following @BreakingNews for a good while now. Can always impress my friends by having meaty stuff easily 20-30 minutes before it hits the networks or cnn.com. An invaluable service, in my opinion.
I think it's important that they stay on top of maintaining editors with impeccable judgment. Seems to me the difference between useful and a public menace might be as delicate as the selection of what to push. THIS is the service I'd be willing to pay for, not the willy-nilly publishing of anything and everything that comes across the wire. But they seem to be on top of this already.
By maintaining AP style in their Tweets, @BreakingNews helps me keep tabs on what is corroborated information and what is truly breaking and not necessarily substantiated. They also publish timely retractions, when needed. This is a good ethic to continue.
I look forward to the iPhone app!
Posted by: lyza.myopenid.com
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July 14, 2009 12:24 PM
Thats is your interpretation, not the reality. Your article has several things wrong.
Great story Marshall... very inspiring... Another signal to traditional media to take heed of the changing dynamic of information and react now before they completely lose their position of dominance... or maybe 1 day Mr Poppel will buy out Murdoch.
BNO - it's definitely my interpretation. Please let me know what I got wrong though.
Thanks for the story! Great to hear individuals making things like that happen on that scale.
I've subscribed to @BreakingNews on Twitter forever, and it seems that it always beats everyone. (It seems @CNNbrk often lags by an hour or more!)
I don't know why or how, but I'm very pleased to learn that one young person is driving the bus. I hope many young journalist wannabes can learn from van Poppel's example!
All media outlets who subscribe to a wire service pay fees. The problem with some aggregators is that they do not use/pay for a wire service. They just check headlines from various news sources and spit them back out. This kid does pay for the wires and pushes it out faster. Good for him. Good for BNO.
It's funny that your screenshot catches them in the midst of reporting a story that turned out to be false. Being first to report breaking news is great — but only if you're RIGHT. Other news organizations don't take longer to report the news because they're old and slow, but because the take those extra few minutes to make damn sure that what they're reporting is true.
Like many of us, I had no idea that a 19 year old was behind this. Just think that is outright cool. Great piece. Cheering as well
he started with a tape from the VERY DEAD Osama Bin Laden that nobody else had ?
And now suddenly he is super-successful ?
Hmmm...do I smell CIA-FUNDED ? Could it be that, with all major media outlets falling into discredit, they now need a way into social media in order to spread their propaganda ?
Interesting article, great idea and news model. I think BNO has taken a unique approach but can't see this as the key that all older media entities must follow, it's not just about who breaks the story but the follow up that is missing from news today. We've created this sensationalistic news market that is trying to be entertainment and the "I broke it first" stance and then looking for the next news bite.
@BreakingNews, can you help clarify the mistakes in the article? I think Marshall had a great take on things but if there are inaccuracies, we'd love the clarification :) Either way good stuff and keep it up.
@Marcos Dutra: you made me laugh so hard. I'm not falling for your stuff.
@Chris: That's the only thing they've gotten wrong in ages. Everything else is way faster. You've no right to crticize them. THEY CHECK THEIR DARN SOURCES!
here is another take on Breaking news - try @NewsTalk on Twitter - they seem to aggragate news "alerts" from the news networks and ask if the story was truly worthy of am alert. (their main focus however seems to be their web version Breakingnewsornot.com)
So wait...when a 19-year-old charges 99 cents a month to aggregate headlines, it's exciting and praise worthy but when the New York Times dares to suggest charging for original reporting, they're met with mockery?
Well, a lot of newspapers also republish Reuters or AP's stories... are they aggregators? Meh.
I understand the excitement of creating a model that breaks news faster than mainstream media networks... and I understand that it's even more of a story because it's a 19 year-old. But, and I pose this question from a 21 year-old perspective, do you think we have become more obsessed with the speed we receive news versus the quality of the news?
If a news network slips and doesn't report a breaking news story for a day or so, of course there is reason to be critical. But if it's a matter of a few minutes or a couple hours... what's the big deal?
TMZ may have announced Michael Jackson's death before than anyone else... but did anyone REALLY believe TMZ before the MSM confirmed it? No. (Plus, they pay their sources... come on now...)
The MSM is and will continue to be the final authority everyone listens to because of the fact that they take their time to check the legitimacy of a story. And furthermore, because they have the resources and are prepared to expand on a story to give it more value than just "breaking news."
I had no idea @mpoppel was 19 - major props to him for what he's created! I've been following BNO for a long time now, long before I started @BreakingTweets.
Mike, I wouldn't be so upset with this article. Take the skepticism as a compliment, and it's proof that more and more people are taking notice of your start-up. That's a good thing.
Keep up the good work.
BNO is picking up 1/2 of the journalistic job mainstream media has mostly walked away from: get people accurate news that matters to them asap.
The other half is getting them news they don't want to hear about: this used to be called muckraking. It's what gets reporters shot, and why journalism is more than media.
We need both parts of what news used to be: I for one am glad to see BNO at least filling some of the hole left by large media orgs.
AA, I agree. I think the speed at which we receive news is overrated. There's a point at which it's good enough. News is better when it's been verified. Who really cares if a blog broke that MJ is dead minutes before the big guys? Does it really make that big of a difference?
The other problem is nobody takes all these blogs to task when they do get their news stories wrong or their reporting is biased. It's just par for the course, and really, there are so many "sources" of news, you can't blame any one for the problem. It bothers me that people are so excited that the "mainstream media" is toppling. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but I shudder to think about what's replacing it.
Great post Marshall!
Posted by: John Poore
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July 14, 2009 8:30 PM
Now I know ... the rest of the story. Quite something. Most of my intake of BNO reporting is via their presence on FriendFeed, and it's been excellent.
Posted by: Micah Wittman
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July 14, 2009 10:47 PM
Are they financed, or is it all sweat equity now?
Thank you for your story! Great to listen to the individual decision-making to happen in such a scale.
I think that the BNO has taken a unique approach, but you can not think this is the key to all the old media entities must abide by, not only to whom the story, but the rest of the follow-up to this is missing today from reporters.
Makes me wonder how he manages to get the news in the first place. Are they all from news sites...a la copy and paste? I haven't been to BNO yet till I came across this online. Now I am heading there and their twitter too...geez...
If you create your own niche audience then you can aggregate niche news to them and also run ads according to your niche. Sounds simple yes?
long island basement contractor
Perhaps the speed with which we receive a news byte should be proportional to the direct impact it will have on our lives.
For example, learning that a Tsunami is approaching Malibu is very time-critical, especially for residents of Malibu. But learning that Michael Jackson has died will have less of an impact on most of us.
So, I'd agree with the commenters who argue that speed isn't everything in the world of news; accuracy is.
Readers Digest and similar magazines are successful "aggregators", so why not BNO
Now check out that 15-yo from Morgan Stanley who reckons Twitter is for "old people". Must've got Twitter's knickers in a twist!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/13/twitter-teenage-media-habits
Great post, GREETNING FROM GERMANY
Very intuitive system. However, it may yet be a little confusing. I will keep visiting this blog very often. After this I will read all your posts thankful.
Are they financed, or is it all sweat equity now?
Are they financed, or is it all sweat equity now?