Breaking News (NBC News)

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.