Social news site Newsvine, which launched in March 2006, has been acquired by MSNBC.com, a fifty-fifty joint venture between Microsoft and NBC. This is MSNBC.com’s first acquisition.
The deal, which closed on October 5, was all cash, but the acquisition price is not being disclosed. Both companies are based in Seattle. Mike Davidson, the founder of Newsvine, said that the companies will continue operating separately but that technology integration will occur over time. MSNBC has around 200 employees; Newsvine has just six.
Newsvine reaches this liquidity event after having raised just $1.5 million in capital. It joins both Stumbleupon and Mozy , each of which were also acquired earlier this year after having raised less than $2 million in venture capital.
This brings the total number of meaningful acquisitions of social news sites to three: Fox bought Newroo in March 2006 for $7 million (it is currently MySpace News) and Condé Nast, owner of Wired, acquired Reddit in October 2006.
Newsvine was recently mentioned on the Daily Show when Davidson “enhanced” Senator John McCain’s Myspace page.
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Our (MSNBC.com’s) own story on deal:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21138371
Strategically, we think this is a perfect match.
Sold so quick
http://www.rajuthan.com/
Smart move MSNBC.com, it looks like someone’s creeping in on your users. Check out the Compete.com stat’s:
http://siteanalytics.compete.c.....?metric=uv
Newsvine was a brilliantly executed company that shows how great ideas plus great implementation will lead to success. Unless it leads to failure.
Congratulations to them on a well-deserved big payday.
Compete doesn’t include subdomains (we’re located at msnbc.msn.com), so all you’re seeing there is some legacy content. In other words, those numbers are off by about 4 decimal places.
@Rex
Good point. Thats something Compete should work on! I tried msnbc.msn.com and it input msn.com; it should be able to assess the point of entry whether or not its a subdomain.
Great job, Rex and team. It’s a very smart move that allows you to be at the forefront of digital news. Hopefully this will enhance the Newsvine community as well.
congrats to the newsvine team. what you’ve built with what you’ve had is truly inspirational. looking forward to your continued success…
Oh, and some questions for the TC reporters:
Estimated sale price?
Who represented Newsvine in the process?
Were there other bidders, and if so, who?
How long was the site for sale?
Congrats to them. I have used newsvine in the past.
season of acquisitions, this one sounds a perfect match
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
Congrats to Mike and the team @ Newsvine. Well deserved
Wow, nice job Newsvine. Wish we could see what kind of cash they got
We did great on this one!
These people sold out for pocket change!
One less competitor, muahahahahaha
NewsVine rocks. I agree with Don, I wonder how much they sold it for? I’ll take a guess and say 40M.
22 million
I think this site was gonna get picked up sooner or later. i wonder how much the deal was closed for?
Congrats to Newsvine. At least MSNBC isn’t calling Newsvine a “great little site”.
Congratulations to the team over at Newsvine. They have a great site and deserve something like this.
Was this on holiday season shopping list
Congratulations to team at Newsvine. Smart company with a talented crew.
Congrats!
As an early and active Newsvine user:
KUDOS to the wonderful management. Its’ not just the (amazingly functional) site that is interactive, the owners have long listened and communicated with the users. They deserve any success they get.
Congrats
Damn! I never expected this one. Well, congrats guys!
Way to go Newsvine- great for a Seattle company!
Very smart move on MSNBC’s part. They’re inheriting something its competitors like CNN and Fox haven’t been able to build organically: a massive pool of active social journalists.
After only one day with these people, I’m beginning to regret this deal!
ttp://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Congrats to Newsvine
Well done to Mike and the Newsvine team.
Job well done. What’s the price?
http://www.numberzoom.com
Very impressive turnaround! It’ll be interesting to see how things change on Newsvine after the acquisition. It just seems to me that social news sites like Newsvine are best served as independents, not affiliated with any major news corp or service. Lets see what happens.
Shafqat
http://www.newscred.com (coming soon)
Ditto on comment 31…one of the most fundamental aspects of social news is the independence factor. However obvious this is to MSNBC, there will likely remain a market for the MSNBC regular readers who think social news is “in” and newsvine can offer a good mix of controlled content and social features. Also, MSNBC adds a sense of credibility to some of the amateurish content that a social news site will naturally incure, but like #31, I agree that the best social news is inherently independent.
Congrats to the Newsvine team!