Solving the Mystery of Nixle

As we travel around the country, we keep hearing public safety officials talk about Nixle. It's a notification solution, similar to others. A public safety agency subscribes, then invites residents to sign up to receive notifications. Here's the difference: Nixle is free. It doesn't cost public safety anything and it doesn't cost the residents anything.

So, how can a company offer such a service with no obvious means of survival? A prominent theory about the mystery is that Nixle will generate revenue by selling space in their notifications to advertisers. Wrong, we learned. In fact, their agreements with their public safety customers specifically state they won't do so. So, what is it?

Being astute detectives, we decided to solve the mystery. (OK, perhaps we simply called Nixle's Chief Executive Officer/Founder.) Craig Mitnik is a former prosecutor, clearly with a passion for helping make sure citizens are notified when there's something of interest going on in their communities. He says he's surprised that his business model has become an issue, but says he's been asked about it many times in the last few months as he was building his customer list to over 3,600 agencies.

Here's the trick: Mitnik and company have developed related technology they intend to sell to the private sector. That, he believes, will be more lucrative than selling to public safety, and will help support his public safety efforts.

Mitnik stresses that his public safety system and his private sector systems "are not co-mingled". His partners will probably make sure that's the case. One of them is the National Law Enforcement Technology System (NLETS), which has strict standards for security.

We don't endorse vendors, but I must confess to being impressed with Nixle. I signed up to check it out. (Since my hometown doesn't use Nixle, I had to trick the system into thinking that I live in a bar in Virginia.) I was impressed with the notifications I received. Mitnik shares credit with the public safety agency in Virginia I tricked, saying Nixle gives complete control to the agency for content.

Is Nixle the answer to the challenge of solving notification problems? Probably not by itself, but it sure looks like an interesting piece of the puzzle. Let's just hope Mitnik and company are successful selling to the private sector so they can keep their public safety habit alive.

All the best,

Rick