Projects
Companies I've co-founded, writing published elsewhere and press coverage.
Companies
Factal is a verified risk intelligence platform for global security, risk and supply chain teams. A hybrid of advanced AI and experienced journalists, Factal enables organizations to quickly anticipate and respond to critical events that pose a risk to their people and operations around the world. As the name suggests, Factal puts a premium on getting the facts right in real time. While news organizations tell stories and social media commands attention, Factal focuses on the operational details organizations need to make decisions in the moment. For example, as a wildfire approaches a hotel where employees are staying in Greece, do they need to evacuate now? Operational certainty has become harder as the internet fills with AI-generated content, misinformation and noise. That makes verification more important than ever. At Factal, verification isn't a feature layered onto the product; it's built into the architecture of the platform and the ethos of how we work. From the AI tooling, journalism standards and Factal chat network, the platform is designed to help people act with confidence in high pressure situations. That same verified foundation can also plug into the tools, dashboards and AI agents organizations already use, grounding their decisions in Factal's data rather than the open web. Factal sprang from the ashes of Breaking News , a popular consumer service inside NBC News. Co-founded by Ben Tesch, Charlie Tillinghast and me, Factal launched in October 2018. Today its members include many of the largest companies in the world, spanning technology, finance, retail, insurance, health care, energy and other major sectors. I'm particularly proud that we provide Factal free to more than 300 humanitarian and disaster relief organizations, including the largest Red Cross teams around the world.
Read more →Breaking News began as an experiment inside MSNBC Interactive, the joint venture of Microsoft and NBC. Co-founded by Ben Tesch, Tom Brew and me, we began with the Twitter account @breakingnews, which MSNBC took over in an agreement with its creator, Michael van Poppel. We then added the domain, BreakingNews.com, and launched a mobile app. The idea was simple: provide the fastest, accurate breaking news available, linking the best original sources – even if they were NBC's competitors. In 2012, NBC took over full control of MSNBC Interactive, and the network embraced the experiment. Over the next few years, we launched a series of groundbreaking mobile features including proximity alerts , muting and nearby tips (which won a national journalism award and helped us break some of the world's largest stories). The app exploded in popularity, outpacing NBC News' own mobile active user growth, but revenue remained a challenge. When the new NBC News president decided to focus on video, Breaking News got the boot. We published our last update on Dec. 31, 2016.
Read more →I co-founded My Ballard with my wife Kate when we moved to the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard. It began as a part-time blog where we published anonymously as the "Geeky Swedes." As the neighborhood grew in size and popularity, so did My Ballard, becoming one of the largest hyperlocal sites in the country. It became the anchor of a larger network of neighborhood sites we called Next Door Media, and My Ballard and its cousin PhinneyWood won national journalism awards. But as a labor of love, it was difficult to maintain with our day jobs. So in 2020, Kate and I stepped aside and sold My Ballard to its editor, Meghan Walker, for a dollar. We're extremely happy to see the site live on as a valuable community resource.
Read more →I launched Lost Remote as a newsletter in 1997, and it grew into one of the first blogs on the web. Focused on how technology was changing TV, Lost Remote covered the industry's collision with the internet. Then with the rise of social media, it narrowed its coverage to social TV. Lost Remote was highly influential among media executives, and Mediabistro acquired Lost Remote in 2012. Two years later, Adweek bought Mediabistro, and Lost Remote continued publishing until 2024. Much of the archive still lives on at Adweek.com , with earlier snapshots preserved on the Wayback Machine .
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Writing
- Factal blogI don't write as many of these posts anymore, but here are a few of my highlights:
- LinkedIn articlesOccasional longer pieces published straight to LinkedIn:
- Medium (Breaking News)The last few years' worth of Breaking News' announcements.
- Tumblr (Breaking News)I wrote a LOT about Breaking News' new features and innovations.
- My BallardMy wife and I blogged about a Seattle neighborhood while we juggled two kids and our real jobs. Here are a couple of my favorite stories:
- New building swallowing woman's home (saga inspired Disney movie "Up")
- 3-alarm arson fire destroys Greenwood businesses (won a national SPJ award)
Press
- Monitoring global hotspots, Seattle media startup Factal lands key partnership to grow its business
- Prediction: The AI content flood
- Factal, which alerts companies of breaking news events, raises $3.3M after doubling revenue in 2020
- Prediction: The year after a thousand earthquakes
- Prediction: Journalism as a technology service
- Corporate news alert startup Factal launches 24/7 global service with core Breaking News team
- I want bad news and I want it fast: That's the business model for Factal, a business-focused company
- Breaking News founders launch Factal, delivering real-time news and incident alerts to companies
- NBC shutting down Breaking News app, service
- When 9.4 million followers isn't enough: NBC News will shut down the Breaking News app on Dec. 31
- Breaking News wants you to use its app to share news tips with its editors — and other users
- You can now get personalized Breaking News alerts on Slack
- Prediction: The rise of frictionless video
- Push it: How Breaking News notifies users of news stories before they become big
- Breaking News wants you to send news tips from the Apple Watch
- Time spent or time well spent — how to think about Web traffic
- Geolocated News Is Going To Change The News Business
- Maybe 'time saved' is a better metric to watch than 'time spent' on mobile
- The notification knows where you are: Breaking News debuts news alerts tied to your location
- How @breakingnews keeps news junkies current in a crisis
- Here's how Breaking News reported truth during the Boston Marathon bombings
- BreakingNews.com Launches First-Ever Real-Time News App on Samsung SMART TV
- Lost Remote becomes latest acquisition of Mediabistro parent company
- MSNBC.com's Breaking News traces info to its source
- For The Trifecta: MSNBC Extends Its BreakingNews Brand To Facebook
- Msnbc.com acquires 'Breakingnews.com'