Newsvine has entered a private beta, and I'm more than happy to say people are going to be excited when it goes public. On the surface, it is somewhere between social networking, news, and a rating site. Beneath that however, there are also watch lists, soon to be celebrity writers and taggers, a complete tagging system that rivals the popular tag based sites like Flickr, and a pretty good shot at a business model which is going to turn some heads. So what exactly is it they do well? They certainly have the [news" part down.
Hitting the Newsvine front page is like the start of a visit to a typical web site such as CNN or MSNBC. There are categories along the top for all your major news items such as "Health", "Tech", "U.S.", and so on. The largest difference though is the icons that are attached to every post on Newsvine. Every article (either written exclusively for Newsvine or as a link to an offsite article) can be rated, commented on, or talked about in a live chat. The live chat is especially interesting and I'll actually get to that in a bit. Stories that get more positive ratings move up the vine until they start appearing on the front page, much akin to how "Digg](http://www.digg.com) handles popular stories. I'm not sure right now if comments help boost it up or not, but it's always possible.
The next big thing to rock the vine is their business model. Picture this- you write articles, people read your articles, you get a percentage of the advertising. It's a very simple process that not only gets Newsvine some great quality content, but also gives great incentive and reward for quality writing and journalism.
I saved live chat for last since it is certainly one of the most memorable things. Every article, every page has the option for chatting built in. For Gaia Online, underneath the township, the slots, and the fishing lies two components: the PHP interface layer for game logic and authentication, and the Java server for all chat communication. While I can't say if Newsvine is running something by Rawfish Software or something home-brewed, it's snappy, responsive, and solves the primary goal of being able to talk while on a page. Using a simple Flash replacement (which is more a flash with style alterations), the chat room is up and running in an instant. It's aware of closing, disconnects, quitting browsers, and more too. Since right now it's a small group of people, the conversation is always great to boot.
In the end, Newsvine stands to catch the eye of many media outlets, especially those who have always wanted people to "talk" about their news. What Newsvine will do as a company remains to be seen, but as a place to go for news, it has the best of Digg and Google News all in one very nice package.
In response to "Fresh off the Vine":
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