The social media giant simply known as ‘Breaking News‘ is calling it quits.
The organization owned by NBC News will shut down at the end of the year.
Cory Bergman, the app’s founder, made the announcement in a statement:
This is a breaking story I hoped I’d never report: NBC News has decided to shut down Breaking News effective Dec 31.
We’re true believers of news that isn’t designed for clicks, but a service that helps people and companies make smarter, safer decisions. As we discovered, such a model doesn’t fit with advertising, and despite a surge of interest in our premium data, the money has run out.
We have tremendously loyal and influential global users who rely on us daily for discovery, fact-checking and public safety. We will miss serving them.
It has been the greatest honor to work with such a talented team: the industry’s best minds in mobile/social innovation. (Hire ’em!)
Special thanks to co-founders Ben Tesch and Thomas Michael Brew. To Charlie Tillinghast for his vision years ago and Michael van Poppel for pioneering @breakingnews on Twitter.
My thanks to NBC for taking a bold bet and financing us for so long. Nobody has done what we’ve done, and we’re damn proud of it.
Stay tuned for more later, including details on how you can hire the best mobile/social talent in the business.
NBC news told Poynter: “We are committed to a culture of experimentation and innovation at NBC News Digital, and Breaking News was a product that embodied that spirit for more than five years. However, experiments eventually need to sustain themselves and in this case, despite every effort, we just weren’t able to get there.”
