October 7, 2007

Breaking: Newsvine Acquired By MSNBC.com

Michael Arrington

47 comments »

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.

Sphere It

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Comments

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Rex

October 7th, 2007 at 2:09 pm

Our (MSNBC.com’s) own story on deal:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21138371

Strategically, we think this is a perfect match.
Rajuthan

October 7th, 2007 at 2:35 pm

Sold so quick

http://www.rajuthan.com/
B.Ackles

October 7th, 2007 at 2:39 pm

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
Joe Duck

October 7th, 2007 at 2:41 pm

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.
Rex

October 7th, 2007 at 2:41 pm

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.
B.Ackles

October 7th, 2007 at 2:47 pm

@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.
Someone

October 7th, 2007 at 2:48 pm

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.
danny

October 7th, 2007 at 2:58 pm

congrats to the newsvine team. what you’ve built with what you’ve had is truly inspirational. looking forward to your continued success…
Someone

October 7th, 2007 at 2:58 pm

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?
Word Hugger

October 7th, 2007 at 3:22 pm

Congrats to them. I have used newsvine in the past.
phenom

October 7th, 2007 at 3:38 pm

season of acquisitions, this one sounds a perfect match
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
Project

October 7th, 2007 at 3:39 pm

Congrats to Mike and the team @ Newsvine. Well deserved
Don Wilson

October 7th, 2007 at 3:43 pm

Wow, nice job Newsvine. Wish we could see what kind of cash they got
Steve Ballmer

October 7th, 2007 at 4:10 pm

We did great on this one!
These people sold out for pocket change!
One less competitor, muahahahahaha
wayne lambright

October 7th, 2007 at 4:26 pm

NewsVine rocks. I agree with Don, I wonder how much they sold it for? I’ll take a guess and say 40M.
chris

October 7th, 2007 at 4:29 pm

22 million
Learn PHP

October 7th, 2007 at 4:31 pm

I think this site was gonna get picked up sooner or later. i wonder how much the deal was closed for?
Frank Sinton

October 7th, 2007 at 4:41 pm

Congrats to Newsvine. At least MSNBC isn’t calling Newsvine a “great little site”.
Ian Bell

October 7th, 2007 at 5:48 pm

Congratulations to the team over at Newsvine. They have a great site and deserve something like this.
WizCoder

October 7th, 2007 at 6:20 pm

Was this on holiday season shopping list
Bill Gaffney

October 7th, 2007 at 6:21 pm

Congratulations to team at Newsvine. Smart company with a talented crew.
Deals and Coupons

October 7th, 2007 at 6:45 pm

Congrats!
chill

October 7th, 2007 at 7:14 pm

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
Ronald Lewis

October 7th, 2007 at 7:45 pm

Damn! I never expected this one. Well, congrats guys!
UrbanAsh

October 7th, 2007 at 8:04 pm

Way to go Newsvine- great for a Seattle company!
Wilson Cleveland

October 7th, 2007 at 8:25 pm

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.
Steve Ballmer

October 7th, 2007 at 10:56 pm

After only one day with these people, I’m beginning to regret this deal!

ttp://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
JohnN

October 8th, 2007 at 2:33 am

Congrats to Newsvine
Mark Devlin

October 8th, 2007 at 5:28 am

Well done to Mike and the Newsvine team.
Bill Foote

October 8th, 2007 at 10:05 am

Job well done. What’s the price?

http://www.numberzoom.com
Shafqat Islam

October 8th, 2007 at 12:26 pm

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)
Jeff

October 8th, 2007 at 9:37 pm

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!