3:02am

It’s 3:02am so I’ll keep this short. We sent out invites to Newsvine tonight. The reaction has been almost unconditionally positive so far. We’re so happy.

And so sleep-deprived.

Almost 2000 new e-mails in my inbox today and we didn’t even send invites out until the work day was over. Tomorrow will be interesting.

If you signed up for the beta and didn’t receive an invite, please check your bulk/junk mail folder. E-mail filtration can get a bit aggressive sometimes.

A big thank you to everyone who has helped us in these formative stages of the Newsvine collective. So much more cool stuff is yet to come.

Like this entry? You probably shouldn't follow me on Twitter here. I recommend the RSS feed instead.

51 Responses:

  1. Thank you!

  2. Newsvine is looking awesome! I can’t wait to see what else is going to get rolled out in the future. Keep up the good work!

  3. It’s looking great Mike! Nice job.

  4. Chris R says:

    got my invite and must say I’m impressed.

    The site looks fantastic! very clean and stylish. the navigation feels populated without being crowded if that makes sense?

    All in all it’s a great job and I wish you and your team all the best.

  5. Chris R says:

    I do have 1 tiny tiny tiny tiny complaint.

    When you click the [!] to report a story you should be able to close it buy clicking the red header. It is hard to click that tiny x in the corner. It would also be nice if it faded or went away after 4-5 seconds if your mouse was not over it.

  6. Steve S. says:

    Very cool. Site seems a little bit slow, but that could just be the hits pouring in. :) I liek how the comments on newsvine are styled the same as the comments here.

  7. Robert says:

    Really liking Newsvine so far. My only comment/criticism is that there’s such an abundance of features and capabilities that I can’t quite decide what I want to do first, not that that’s such a bad thing. It’ll be interesting to watch Newsvine as it grows and becomes a thriving community.

  8. Jason says:

    One word: awesome. Very impressive. Keep up the great work.

  9. James says:

    Awesome work man, can’t wait for this weekend so I can have some time to play.

  10. Christina says:

    I’m so excited to be part of the beta. The site looks wonderful and I can’t wait to explore even more. Thanks.

  11. This looks awesome! I have ‘why.newsvine.com’.. ones I really wanted though were: my. , in. , on. , peter. , etc. This is really exciting, you should see the smile on my face.

    Thank you!

  12. Jonathan says:

    Newsvine looks great! I really like the design of the site. Hopefully I’ll get some more time this weekend to get familiar with it.

  13. Many thanks for the beta invite. From what I’ve played around with so far, I see nothing but good things. Looking forward to the weekend so I can spend some quality time with it.

  14. Beth says:

    Newsvine is very different than I thought it would be, it’s not like any other site around, I love it.

  15. Rob says:

    Thanks for my invite. At first glance it looks absolutely fantastic. Can wait to play with it and see how people start using the service.

  16. Yes, thanks. I’m hoping to have the weekend to check it out further!

  17. Get some rest Mike, you deverve it. It’s been fun watching Newsvine evolve over the last month.

  18. Bad. Ass.

  19. Allan R. says:

    Nice, very nice…

  20. Thomas says:

    Mike,

    How would you describe the difference between Newsvine and UXmag? Newsvine seems to have a bit more content but aren’t they similar in concept.

  21. Brian says:

    Thanks for the invite, MIke. I haven’t had time to check it all out yet, but it looks nice.

  22. Helen says:

    The site looks good but here are my thoughts (since just telling you it looks good isn’t as helpful as telling some recommendations).

    1. Not enough color (very white on dark gray). The color palette seems to be just 3 colors (green, light gray, and white). Something as simple as having h2 and h3 a different color might be enough.

    2. The fonts are extremely small. I don’t need to tell you this but many people have a difficult time reading fonts that small and it makes reading slow when you have to skwint.

    3. The dotted underline on links is certainly better than a full underline, but make the dotted color under links a lighter (closer to white) color. It’s still to dark and makes links difficult to read.

    Just out of curiousity, I don’t see ad’s? How does the site plan to make money?

    I wish you the best with your endeavors!

  23. John says:

    Newsvine is looking great so far!

    Helen: look closer, and you’ll see there is space for ads. I’m willing to bet the top image promoting the Newsvine blog isn’t 728×90 by accident ;-)

  24. Don’t mention performance, unfortunately, but it’s great work nonetheless!

  25. SC says:

    just another “I’m really impressed.”

    seriously, way to do a great thing right off the bat

  26. TradeMark says:

    The green on gray is the site’s trademark colors. Never change them cause no one else has them.

  27. Collin says:

    Green and gray are all you need. Any other color can come from the photos and articles.

  28. gb says:

    Oh good… I’ve been waiting for some fresh blood…

    The more people on Newsvine, the better it’ll get. :)

  29. Steve O says:

    Hi Mike,
    Great news on the launch. I noticed you’re using Mint… If you ever have the chance or desire to share how it performs for high-traffic sites, I’m sure the community would be interested…

    Best of luck.

  30. Jackie says:

    This might should strange but does anyone else find typing newsvine.com difficult and slow.

    I like the name but I think because of where the letters (n-e-w-s-v-i-n-e) are placed on the keyboard seems to make it difficult for me to type the URL fast. And yes, I type by touch.

  31. OMEITOR says:

    Mike, thanks for commenting on my blog and telling me about that..

    Oh, and thanks for the invite, and just so you know, I didn’t get to invite all those people, I was waiting for the 20th to get all the invites out, so I guess no harm done?

  32. Mike B says:

    BRAVO!!!

    This is fantastic and has much to offer from it. It has reached past my expectations by far…..great Job!!!

  33. Arthur says:

    How does Newsvines plan on paying authors that generate ad revenue? According to the help section, author receive 90% of the ad revenue … how it is paid (paypal etc)?

  34. Newsvine. Kicks. Ass.

    Great work Mike!

  35. Meh. So much for bragging about exclusivity. :)

    Thanks for making such a great site.

  36. Jon says:

    Very impressed so far. I am already hooked on it!

  37. Thanks for the invite Mike, nice job! Love the site.

  38. Dan says:

    I didn’t “get” the concept for Newsvine before I saw it. Now I “get” it and it’s amazing. Thanks so mcuh for the wonderful service.

  39. Invite? Pleeeze… I just can’t sit by and watch this from the not-cool-kids-club.

  40. Jesús says:

    Unbeliveable look and feel. It’s just sharp!

  41. Hi, um. So I got the invite e-mail. The link in it just took me to the “notify me!” page. The link that says “Use this to try again” did exactly the same thing.

    Did I miss something? Like, a window of less than two days in which to accept the thing? *confused, not angry*

  42. Gregor says:

    Very nice! Can’t wait until it finally gets public :)

  43. claus says:

    great job, mike! this should get big! just a shame that most news stories i read are in german and i have to translate the abstract into english first :-)

    but who knows, maybe you will expand to other languages in due time just like wikipedia did. the concept would work in every language.

  44. John says:

    It’s looking great from here. The idea is brilliant, the design is clean and the execution of the BETA is cracking.

    One thing I’ve noticed, however, is that a lot of people are misinterpreting the whole point. Am I wrong in thinking that Newsvine is strictly for news? I’ve noticed several people seeding their own, completely unrelated-to-news websites and it destroys the concept when these make their way to the front pages of the appropriate categories.

    I’ve reported a couple of these as spam, at which point they seemed to be deleted instantly (Are they simply quarantined to be looked at later by a moderator, or are they actually deleted on the spot?), but I don’t think you can rely on users reporting these things; surely you should make the difference between Newsvine and other services like Digg more apparent to new users and stop it from happening in the first place?

    Regards

  45. Congratulation, Mike. Looks like you’ve got a winner in the making from all the chatter at digg.com and other places I am reading today. Hope I’ll get a look at Newsvine sometime soon. Thanks for your comment on my blog, too.

  46. Conánn says:

    Great buz, can’t wait to have a go.

  47. Newsvine’s comment design looks very familiar, Mike! :)

  48. You Roxors in my BoXors!!!! w00t w00t…I HEAR NV!!!

  49. I love the site and think that it’s full of potential! As a web developer, I’d love to see you post an article describing how the site was designed and built. (i.e. I’d love to learn more about some of the technical inner-workings of the site., what kinds of technology run everything behind the scenes, challenges, lessons learned, etc.–assuming that this stuff isn’t top secret)

    Also, maybe I’m missing something here, but what’s your business model? I don’t see any advertisements on the site… is it going to be subscription based? I know you’re not stupid enough to quit your job to start a new company without someway to make a living… ;-)

  50. Mike D. says:

    Hi Richard. Yes, I should write something up when I find the time. With regard to revenue, Newsvine is no different than any other media company in the world in that regard: it’s advertising-supported. That big “non-ad” on top of the page is 728×90 for a reason. :)

  51. Ahmet Oren says:

    Hello,

    I’d appreciate a newsvine invite address a lot. I am a news executive and would like to try it. I emailed newsvine press address almost a month ago, I didn’t received any reply.

    Thanks in advance.

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