Wanna buy a news ticker?

June 21, 2005 6:45 PM

Buy the 7am News ticker service! It appears that the long running 7am News Ticker is up for sale. It was supposed to cease its service yesterday (June 20) but it's still up today. I've used it for many years. I like that it hits the Guardian and the BBC newsfeeds, plus you can add one of your own for free. It's a cool little service. I hope someone rescues it.
posted by misangela (7 comments total)

NZers in the know: is 7am.com one of Bruce Simpson's babies? Does he still owe the IRD something bad?
posted by John Shaft at 7:01 PM on June 21, 2005

Not snarking, but could you please post a brief explanation of how this is the best of the web? I don't get it.
posted by grouse at 1:20 AM on June 22, 2005

*tumbleweeds roll by*
posted by grouse at 5:40 AM on June 22, 2005

7am certainly was Bruce's creation. And was at one stage "the world's most syndicated news service" or something (based on the fact that some absurd number of mid-ninties web pages featured his ticker).

He sold it. I have no idea what he owes to who, but he basically became a raving loonie in my eyes quite a long time ago (actually he may have always been that).
posted by sycophant at 9:55 PM on June 22, 2005

grouse: It's 'best of the web' in so much as it is possibly a part of web history. The 7am news ticker was pretty much the first service of it's kind on the web and, at the height of it's popularity, grace the HTML of something like 2million web pages. It offered live news headlines on your site before RSS and XML made it easy and was possibly something of a revolution in that respect.

Although I guess it's significance was lost quite a while ago when it was sold by it's original creator and changed, essentially becoming a different beast.
posted by sycophant at 10:01 PM on June 22, 2005

I find it still interesting. Anyone know what the general status of 7am is today>?
posted by cell divide at 10:06 PM on June 22, 2005

Thanks sycophant. Grouse has nothing better to do than snark, apparently. I didn't respond to avoid the inevitable flame war that those who feel they are 'elite' like to cause.

I, too, felt that 7am was a significant part of the web and quite unique when I found it in '97.

Anyway, the 7am service is now gone and the site is too, so I guess that's that.

I'm bummed. It was a good lil ticker!
posted by misangela at 7:33 AM on June 30, 2005