BreakingNewsOn launches iPhone ‘push’ alerts

BreakingNewsOn (BNO), the breaking news service based around Twitter, has just announced that it will soon be using Apple’s ‘push notification’ to send breaking news to iPhone users.

The launch is the latest development for the service: founder Michael van Poppel told Journalism.co.uk in February of plans to establish a website for BNO.

It is expected to launch in the week of the August 3. BNO reports many stories a day and does not intend to ‘push’ all of the headlines to their users, it said in a release. The service has decided that editors will be selective and only send alerts ‘when important headlines break’.

But users will also be able to get updates from a second stream intended for ‘news junkies’ or journalists. Subscribers to this channel will receive more notifications.

Users of the app will be given the option to choose what volume/what major news stories they receive alerts via a ‘push’ and can also use the service to find other stories that they were not alerted about.

The application will cost $1.99 to download and then $0.99 per month after that. BNO said it is also considering expanding the service to other platforms such as the BlackBerry.

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