By Brian Schultz
MSNBC has picked up the popular @BreakingNews Twitter feed, along with its 1.4 million followers in a deal with BNO News.
BNO will reportedly now focus on developing a subscription-based wire service, where their editorial team will work to break their own stories. It will be sort of like a modern version of the AP wire service. The company’s founder, 20-year-old Michael van Poppel, worked to build up BNO over the years, which includes a popular iPhone app, website, and massive e-mail subscription list.
The BNO News wire service is expected to launch January 1, 2010 and MSNBC is its first subscriber.
This isn’t the first time a traditional media outlet has taken over a popular Twitter account to feed their stories. In April, CNN acquired the @cnnbrk account that had beaten out the news channel in the amount of followers to tweet their own headlines.
— With files from PaidContent.org
