MSNBC buys participatory news site Newsvine

MSNBC Interactive News has acquired Newsvine, operator of a Web site that encourages users to link to their favorite news of the day, submit comments, and write their own stories.

Msnbc.com hopes to engage more people and advertisers by adding Newsvine to its fold of brands, and including more interactive features, richer content, and a fuller spectrum of news, the company said Sunday.

The deal highlights the global trend among news organizations to seek novel ways of involving people in Internet news sites. Some Web sites encourage citizen journalism and link to news blogs, while Newsvine relies mainly on user links to professional news sites, but also welcomes citizen journalists and counts on user rankings, comments, and guest columns.

“Updated continuously by citizens like you, Newsvine is an instant reflection of what the world is talking about at any given moment,” the company says on its Web site.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the purchase shows the strong attraction businesses have for Web sites that gain a large following of interactive users. Newsvine, of Seattle, was acquired just over a year and a half after being founded in March 2006 by veterans of Disney, ESPN, and other media organizations. One of the highest-profile acquisitions of an interactive site was when News Corp. paid $580 million for social networking site Myspace.com in 2005. Other purchases include Yahoo’s buyouts of link sharing site Del.icio.us and photo sharing site Flickr.com.

Newsvine promised to remain independent after the acquisition.

“Msnbc.com is committed to maintaining and growing the community and features that have made Newsvine what it is today,” Newsvine said on its blog. “In other words, Newsvine will be the same Newsvine you’ve always known, only stronger. Over the next few years, Newsvine technology and content will make its way onto msnbc.com, and vice-versa where it makes sense.”

Newsvine agreed to the acquisition because it believes it can grow faster and more widely through MSNBC.com, it said.

The company will remain in Seattle, led by current CEO Mike Davidson, MSNBC said. Davidson will report to MSNBC President Charlie Tillinghast.

Msnbc.com, of Redmond, Wash., was started as a partnership by Microsoft and NBC Universal in 1996 and serves more than 29 million unique visitors per month.