Users could write articles, "seed" links to external content, and discuss news items in an online forum.

[1] Seattle-based Newsvine, Inc. was founded in the spring of 2005 by Mike Davidson, Calvin Tang, Lance Anderson and Mark Budos.

Josh Yockey joined the company shortly after it opened its offices, with Tom Laramee and Tyler Adams being hired later.

The development team consisted of several veterans from the Walt Disney Internet Group and ESPN.

The company moved into its offices near downtown Seattle on August 1, 2005, and launched newsvine.com into a private "alpha" version on December 1, 2005.

Since the acquisition, Newsvine has continued to run as a separate website and brand from msnbc.com, operating out of its original headquarters in Seattle.

Commonly known as citizen journalism, this allows users to express their opinions for public discussion or even report on events in a journalistic manner.

While writing articles, users can upload their own photographs or choose from a list of Flickr photos registered under a Creative Commons license for addition to the post.

These user columns can be used to manage and share their articles, seeds, online friends, recommendations, and other statistical information.

Much like the Watchlist, the Conversation Tracker allows users to track other members' activities online on the site.

The Friends List was a feature that existed prior to 2013, which gave users the ability to meet new people and find others with common interests, but there are no requirements in doing so.

Creating a populated friends list gives users the ability to find interesting new articles through the Conversation Tracker.