MSNBC has acquired Newsvine, a socially driven news site. Newsvine will continue to operate as an independent news site and will not be folded into MSNBC.com, but Newsvine technology will be added to the MSNBC website.

That means you'll probably see more social features including user-generated articles and links to news elsewhere on the web. Content from Newsvine columnists could also wind up on MSNBC's home page, giving citizen journalists more exposure.

The deal also means Newsvine will have more staff, more resources, and the ability to roll out improvements to the site more often. Newsvine currently has articles and images from the Associated Press, and now you'll see MSNBC content as well.

[via TechCrunch]

Newsvine has launched a major site redesign. The site which thrives on user-submitted news stories is now more user-customizable.

Much like personal start pages Netvibes, Pageflakes, or Google Personalized Home, users can add and remove modules, or move them around the website. You can also use RSS feeds to add any news source you want to your Newsvine start page.

One new module on the front page called Newsvine Live that shows new submissions to the site before they're made popular enough to appear on the front page.

There's also a little green button at the side of the page that lets you expand Newsvine from its typical 3-column mode into a 4-column display. If you've got a large enough monitor, this lets you get a bit more information on your screen.

[via TechCrunch]

Get badged, by going to badged.net, where you can simply build a custom badge widget for your site or blog. The list of available badges you can include in your custom widget is pretty good:

• Digg This Story
  
• Sphere It
  
• Add to Technorati Favorites
  
• View Blog Reactions (via Technorati)
  
• Add to del.icio.us
  
• Add to Furl
  
• Add to Netscape
  
• Add to Yahoo! Myweb
  
• Add to Google Bookmarks
  
• Add to Newsvine
  
• Add to Blinklist
  
• Add to Reddit
  
• Add to Blogmarks
  
• Add to Magnolia
  
• Add to Windows Live
  
• Add to Tailrank
  
• Add to Favorites (Internet Explorer)
  
• Email This

You type in your site URL and name, check the boxes, and get the code at the bottom of the page. It could not be any easier to do and you can insert the whole thing at the bottom of your posts, your site, whatever. Sweet, slick, and fan-tas-tic. Here is what the actual badge I created looks like:
[Via The Global Geek Podcast]

Carson Workshops is running a two day conference on the development of technology you will be using tomorrow in San Francisco at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, on September 13-14. This isn't a no name conference either! There will be some big-hitters speaking at the event, including:

• Kevin Rose from digg
• Mike Arrington from TechCrunch
• Mike Davidson from Newsvine
• Jeff Veen from Google
• Tantek Celik from Technorati
• Cal Henderson from Flickr
• Matt Mullenweg from Wordpress
• Evan Williams from Odeo
• Tom Coates from Yahoo!
• Ted Rheingold from Dogster
• Carl Sjogreen from Google Calendar
• Steve Olechowski from Feedburner
• Ryan Carson from DropSend and Amigo

The speakers will be spilling the beans on how their successful applications were built, with a ton of practical advice on how to create your very own masterpieces or the future of web 2.0 technologies. If you are hanging out in the San Fran area, or feel like taking a trip, September 13 - 14 is the time to go for sure.

Just now AOL made its public launch of www.beta.netscape.com, the long-rumored successor to Netscape.com. Being an AOL employee, I've been checking out the private beta for a couple weeks, and I'm pretty impressed. The new Netscape.com (or "New N" as it's been referred to internally) takes the formula proven by sites like Digg and Newsvine and marries it to the editorial process of mainstream blogs and more conventional news sites, and the result is surprisingly cohesive. Content on the New N, e.g. links to news stories, cool web sites, videos, etc., is submitted by regular users like you and I and promoted via Digg-like "Vote!" button, and popular posts wind up on the front page. Where the New N diverges from Digg is the editorial layer. Expert "anchors" pick out the most popular stories of the day and promote them to a box at the top of the front page, where they tune in with their own commentary, related links, and so on. It sounds cheesy when put like that, but the result is fresh and intelligible news. The site has a variety of "channels," i.e. categories (30 in all), ranging from politics and celebrities to video games and (gasp!) sex, and channels have their own anchors (you'll probably recognize a few names from others Weblogs, Inc. blogs) highlighting stories in each. Also present are all of the social features you've come to expect, including comments (duh), friends lists, RSS feeds, tagging, and more.

It's worth noting that the paint is by no means dry on the New N, and that "beta" appellation is well-earned. The site launched literally moments ago and hiccups have proven not common. Bugs aside, it'll be awhile before I'm sold on this thing, but as a companion to more tech-oriented "memetrackers," I think the New N is off to a great start. Go check it out before all the good usernames are taken, submit some stories, post some comments, and feel free to add me as a friend.

Last week Jason Calacanis did a little Newsvine testing. A very interesting read from someone who has played with a lot of web toys just like that one... I tried Newsvine, and found it to be a little lacking. Not in features necessarily (although not being able to link to your own post is wack), but in polish. The UI is a bit cumbersome. The buzzword for cumbersome, so you know, is "rich" or "deep." Mike D., from Newsvine, comments on Calacanis's blog the interface is designed to reveal more features over time. That's true of most software, which doesn't make it better. At any rate, another channel, Disinformation, has an interview with Calvin Tang, co-founder of Newsvine available as a podcast. They even talk about scuba diving. Anyone out there using Newsvine on a regular basis? Mine's superpixel.newsvine.com.

[Thanks to Willy for the link]

Sociable is a plugin for Wordpress that adds cute link icons to each of your blog posts that users can click on to quickly add the post to their favorite social bookmark service like del.icio.us or news sites like Digg, Newsvine, or Fark. The plugin can be configured to show icons for any of the 24 (and counting) supported services, and installing it is, as with most Wordpress plugins, a snap.

After two months of closed beta testing, social news site Newsvine made its public debut yesterday. A sort of cross between Google News, Digg, and Wikinews, Newsvine combines wire news from the Associated Press and ESPN with user-submitted links and content. Like Digg, users can vote and comment on all stories, but that's about where the similarities end. Newsvine has no tech bent and its topics align pretty closely with those at most major news sites, but the amount of content to be found there is almost jarring. Check out the Newsvine blog for the launch announcement and some feature highlights and a look at some upcoming features.

[Via Waxy.org]