MSNBC.com bought "citizen journalist" site Newsvine.com, marking its first Web-site purchase.
Since part of the theory behind such sites is taking the power out of the hands of big media news sites like, well, NBC/Microsoft combination MSNBC.com, Newsvine assured surfers that it would continue to "operate independently."
The two companies had been talking since May, Newsvine said. No price was given, but MSNBC.com in its story cited the $75 million that eBay reportedly paid for StumbleUpon, although it said that site had about three times the traffic Newsvine claims, which is about 1 million per month, according to Newsvine, which has only been around for two years.
Reactions on Newsvine ranged from "Wow!" and "Congrats!" to "You can repeat this until you are blue in the face but there are those who will no longer believe anything you say because of your partnership with a -- gasp -- corporation."
