BeNews (1998-2001) was the leading community news site for BeOS, the multimedia operating system developed by Be, Inc.

I co-founded BeNews and served as a developer and writer. The site was “the place with more Be news” — covering software releases, hardware guides, developer interviews, and community events for the passionate BeOS user base.

What was BeOS?

BeOS was an operating system built from scratch in the mid-90s for multimedia and real-time performance. It was way ahead of its time — true multithreading, a 64-bit journaling file system, and a beautiful, responsive UI. Many of us who used it still miss it. The NetPositive browser’s haiku error messages remain iconic.

The site

BeNews screenshot

BeNews had everything a community news site needed: daily news updates, forums, polls, a software tracker (pulling updates from BeBits), articles, and even a store. We ran the annual BeNews Guru Awards to recognize the best BeOS software and developers. We covered everything from Mozilla ports (BeZilla) to audio production software to BeOS user group meetups like BeGeistert in Germany.

The team included Oliver Thylmann, Eugenia Loli-Queru (who later became editor-in-chief at OSNews), Ernst from Holland, and many other contributors from the global BeOS community. I attended BeGeistert 005 in Düsseldorf in October 2000 while living in Belgium for a year.

The site also had a Media Center where we hosted BeOS skins for audio players like CL-Amp and SoundPlay. I made a BeOS-themed skin myself (jwskin) — gotta represent.

jwskin - my BeOS Winamp skin

The end

Be, Inc. ceased BeOS development in 2001 and was eventually acquired by Palm. On December 31, 2001, after a series of server failures that left the site down for weeks, Eugenia and most of the staff resigned. BeNews shut down as the community fragmented. Eugenia went on to become editor-in-chief at OSNews. The BeOS spirit lives on in Haiku OS, an open-source reimplementation that continues to this day.

See also