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Media - Sunday, October 7, 2007

MSNBC Picks Off Newsvine

MSNBC has bought Seattle-based citizen's news site Newsvine for an undisclosed amount. It's a surprising sidenote on the deal is that this is the first acquisition in MSNBCs 11 year history. Newsvine was founded in July 2005 and launched in March 2006 and is funded by Second Avenue Partners. Although Newsvine has only 5 employees it has a big media aura as ESPN.com CEO Mike Slade and Aquantive founder Nick Hanauer are on the company's board.

If you haven't checked out Newsvine its a social news-of-the day site where users comment on articles culled from Big Media (think Fark but more serious). Users are also encouraged to write their own stories .
The site drew 317K visitors in August says Comscore, although the company's CEO says that number is nearing 1M per month.

Newsvine gets:
+ Traffic links and probably some greater editorial resources. MSNBC will also sell advertising - Newsvine had been rep'd by our own Federated Media.
+ Cash in the pocket. Newsvine has not raised much so even a small buyout is a win for all involved.

MSNBC gets:
+ Technology seems to be key as they acknowledge they were late to the user generated content game. They also get a company with HQ just a stone's throw away. Media people in Seattle are attracted to other media people in Seattle.

Read - Seattle PI