Mike Davidson, Newsvine.com, and over a dozen other sources have all been blogging today about the acquisition of Newsvine.com by MSNBC.com.
Unfortunately, I’m sick today and won’t be writing much about this, although I do have lots of opinions on the acquisition. Also, I highly doubt my opinions will be so unique that the other sources won’t have already covered them by the time I am repaired.
Update: Ok, so I’m feeling better today and it’s time I weigh in with my meager opinion.
As someone that works with “news” (quotes are sometimes important there, aren’t they?), I’m often faced with an argument of “should we allow user generated content in our product(s)?”
For me, the argument isn’t whether or not you should ‘allow,’ it’s at what level. For me, the argument is user generated content vs. user contributed content. You see, I’ve always felt that the Internet was a grea way to get instant feedback on what works in a news organization and what doesn’t (for instance, what stories online gather the largest audience; this information may help build tomorrows leader story). This theory doesn’t always work, of course (considering America’s apparent obsession with reality TV and celebrity disasters), but when it does, instant feedback is a godsend. Further, a news organization already accepts contributions and suggestions (what do you think news wires are for?), so why not glean content from your core audience and feed it back to them?
Ok, that last line was a bit OSNAP.net-ish, so I’ll back off a little. What I’m trying to get at is my hope’s for Newsvine.com in the future are the following:
- MSNBC.com will use Newsvine.com as-is; meaning, they’ll just watch how Newsvine.com authors, contributors and visitors interact with the Web site and what ‘they’ find important (they being the audience, not MSNBC.com)
- MSNBC.com will integrate the user contributed portions of Newsvine.com into their own Web network, leaving the user generated portions alone.
There’s a lot more to be said about this deal (such as, hey Mike! mind giving me some pointers on MagStand?), which will have to wait until later. I can only handle so much on the computer today.
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