Marketing Pilgrim

Popular citizen journalism site Newsvine has announced they’ve been acquired by MSNBC.com for an undisclosed sum. MSNBC is a privately held company started by Microsoft and NBC and is located in Newsvine’s backyard–Seattle.

So what does this mean for Newsvine? Here’s a sample of the things they’ve shared at the Newsvine blog.

• Newsvine will continue operating independently…
• Over the next few years, Newsvine technology and content will make its way onto msnbc.com, and vice-versa where it makes sense…
• We officially became part of the msnbc.com family on Friday, October 5th but we’ve been talking since May…
• Increased exposure for Newsvine writers…
• It is our hope that eventually, readers of both Newsvine and msnbc.com will be able to jump from site to site and share in the benefits that each destination offers…
• Under this new partnership, Newsvine will move to the geographically redundant, world-class data centers that house msnbc.com…
• A slightly bigger staff, able to evolve the site and provide features and support to the community without cutting any corners…

It’s interesting that the deal was under wraps until closed on October 5th. That’s how deals used to take place–pre-internet days–but lately it appears companies announce their LOI (letter of intent) and then close the deal many months later. I wonder who pushed to keep it under wraps? I’d suspect that MSNBC didn’t want the news leaked and then have to face a potential bidding war.

So, add Newsvine to the growing list of social media companies acquired–Stumbleupon and Reddit being the others. Who do you think will be next?