“The Breaking News Network delivers social media sourced news and information to over 300 cities and neighborhoods. Each Breaking News site and their accompanying social media feeds (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) provide a real time ticker tape of everything happening in a community.”
The Breaking News Network (BNN) is a community news mashup and microchannel. In addition to sharing breaking news, people in the network also tweet about local groups, good causes and other various community projects. Each city and neighborhood has a local manager keeping a constant stream of content. They’re currently growing their local support and initiated an “Automated Retweet Program.”
What is it?
People who apply and meet BNN Twitter criteria (not sure what it consists of) are able to add a city name hashtag (e.g. #chicago) in a tweet and it is automatically retweeted through the Breaking News Twitter Feed. Has potential as long as people don’t abuse the privilege. I’ll assume, for now, that the content is moderated and (repeat) offenders would lose the ability to post.
What do they want to accomplish?
Through free access to the network, they hope that, ”localized information will encourage conversations as granular as where your kids should get music lessons.” For now, local news like this is hitting the twittosphere:
Want more info? Email the team at thebreakingnewsnetwork@gmail.com , or via Twitter at @thebnn.
Here’s a link to their comprehensive community directory.
What do you think about an Automatic Retweet Program for local news? Share your thoughts in the comments.
