Normally we don't report acquisition news, but this one is pretty interesting. MSNBC has scooped up social news service Newsvine for an undisclosed amount. Both services are based out of Seattle and have been in talks for the last five months. Newsvine will continue to operate independently and serve up a mix of professionally produced and user-generated content, remaining a separate brand and entity from MSNBC.com. But content from Newsvine users could be making its way onto MSNBC.com in the near future.
This is a really solid deal for both parties. Newsvine and its users get a potentially larger audience with original stories being promoted to MSNBC's front page, and, at the same time, MSNBC gets a hotbed of writing and content from a fervent Newsvine user base. In its announcement, the company also quietly noted that the service would actually be better due to the hosting improvements provided by MSNBC compared to their currently "cost-conscious" setup.
Newsvine users shouldn't be too worried about listing the "indie" feeling of Newsvine though, contributing newsmakers to the service will actually have a potentially larger audience than before considering MSNBC.com pulls in a staggering 29 million unique visitors a month.
The acquisition of Newsvine marks one of the latest buy-outs of a social news service since Reddit in late 2006. While other corporate "answers" to popular social news services like Digg and Slashdot seemingly flounder (like Propeller.com, formerly of Netscape.com ilk), Newsvine is a different breed. Instead of submitting links and having a hundred or so characters to write out their opus, Newsvine is centered toward citizen journalism, and rewards its users with revenue sharing and story promotion that is bound to go up with this potentially larger audience.
For more, see the story on CNET News.com
Leaflets: an iPhone web app suite
(Credit: Leaflets)Most iPhone Web apps are standalone applications that live in isolation from all the others. This means that if you use a lot of these applications, you'll either have to bookmark a ton of them, or enter in all those URLs by hand. Leaflets, however, is a site that collects a bunch of small handy Web applications into a single iPhone-friendly portal. The site is very well-designed and feels a lot like an iPhone within an iPhone (even the icons look similar). Not only is there an RSS aggregator, but there's also one-tap access to iPhone-optimized content from the New York Times, Newsvine, Flickr, Upcoming, del.icio.us, and even from the Tour de France. The "leaflets" are also pretty lightweight and are designed to run fast over AT&T's EDGE network.
You do have to sign up to use Leaflets, and provide a login and password. But once you do so, it'll remember your login information for the applications within the collection. We especially liked the Flickr app, which lets us view comments, contacts photos, and so forth. Once you're done using an application, just hit the "Home" button on the upper left corner, and you'll be brought back to the Leaflets home page. Hopefully as time goes on, Leaflets will add more applications to its portal. So far, I'm really liking it, since I use Flickr and Upcoming all the time. We definitely recommend checking it out.
Newsvine, an increasingly popular news aggregation and community content publishing site, re-launched yesterday, re-branding its front page as a single page aggregator. Users can now add and re-order content modules such as weather, sports tickers, and photo slide shows. They can also add RSS feeds from external Web sites (like ours). According to the team's blog post, the addition of modules was the most commonly requested feature by users.
The change has put Newsvine in the running as a single-page aggregator, a crowded area we took a look at last month. While Newsvine doesn't seem to pose an immediate threat to some of the big players like Netvibes and Pageflakes, it's the only single-page aggregation service available that has a community of people creating and sorting written content in the same place--something that's likely to make users return.
The new front page of Newsvine has modules that can be moved around. Users with wide-screen displays also can extend it out to the sides.
(Credit: CNET Networks)- UPS re-direct service goes live. Ever missed a package because it got delivered to your house or apartment while you were at work? UPS has introduced a new service called Delivery Intercept that lets you redirect, hold, and return a package en route, avoiding such mishaps. (CNET News.com)
- YouTube to launch mobile site. The popular video-sharing site is readying a version of its site optimized for mobile viewers. The only reason there hasn't been one sooner is an exclusivity clause with Verizon, from a deal inked last November for Verizon's V Cast service. (via GigaOm)
- Google Pack expanded. Google Pack, the bundled group of Google and partnered applications has a few new additions today. For security, Symantec's Norton Security Scan and PC Tools' Spyware Doctor Starter Edition have been added. For photo nuts, there's also a slick new photo screensaver that pulls in photos from RSS feeds from sites such as 23HQ and Flickr.
- McCain's MySpace page pranked. Republican presidential candidate and United States Senator John McCain had his MySpace profile page pranked this morning for using a MySpace theme designed by NewsVine CEO and founder Mike Davidson without giving credit and hot-linking the images. Davidson was alerted to the fact and swapped out one of the hosted images with a political message about gay marriage. The image has since been pulled. (via TechCrunch)
- FoxyTunes Planet goes live. FoxyTunes Planet, the media-aggregation tool we profiled last month launched publicly this morning. The service allows users with the FoxyTunes toolbar installed on their browser (both IE and Firefox) to pull up various information about the song and artist they're currently listening to.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
MySpace is preparing to launch an integrated news service--with self-aggregating content and social bookmarking--in the coming weeks. MySpace members will be able to post the stories on their profiles, discuss, promote, and submit their own written content to be seen and ranked by other MySpace users (see NewsVine). The new service is reminiscent of Digg and del.icio.us, with social bookmarking for news stories that can be promoted with user voting.
It was only a matter of time before this happened, considering MySpace has been owned by news mogul Rupert Murdoch since 2005 and gets 230,000 new registered users a day--arguably more than most Internet news sites. As TechCrunch notes, the move to buy news aggregator service Newroo last year was not without purpose. The same technology likely will be in place for feeding stories to the site throughout the day.
Membership and usage are two things, but this move is a smart one on MySpace's part. Many MySpace users come online to trade messages with friends and browse profiles. Getting news stories on profiles means a lot of eyes to potentially read them. Not to mention, if there's a reason to come back several times a day to get news and share things with others, there's more of a draw to the site beyond profiles and band spam.
Now, the big question is what this thing is going to look like. If it's anything like the rest of MySpace, with slow page loads, flashing banner ads, and Web 1.0 design, you won't catch me using it.
Update: When asked about the new service, a representative for MySpace responded: "We do not comment on company rumors or speculation regarding our product pipeline."
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