The Newsvine team sent invites to the people who registered to the launch mailing list. I was one of those, and i’ve been playing with the service for a few hours now, i’ll try to explain a some of the features it has.

First off, Newsvine is an old idea done right. The basics of it, are that you’re able to browse user submitted or user written stories/content, and the stories they pull from services like the AP and such.
There are other sites that’ve done something like this for a while now, one of the newest sites that has gone big time is Digg, which i’m sure you’ve heard about. Newsvine is not another Digg/Slashdot though, it takes a different approach, which i believe will be they key to it becoming succesful.

So, this are some of the features that i believe will make Newsvine stand out.

Design

Coming from Mike Davidson, an experienced big time designer (who’s done sites like ESPN.com), it’s no surprise that the design is superb. It’s extremely well done, attractive, and very easy to use. They couldn’t have done a better job.

Column, sort of Blog

Something which i’ve not seen elsewhere, is the ability users have to write content, blog, on Newsvine. You can easily write about anything, tag it, and have it shown up on the site. You’re given a subdomain, which you can use basically as your personal blog. Now, this is not to replace your existing website or anything, but it let’s you easily write about whatever you want, and hopefully, have it read by many within Newsvine.
The killer feature here, is that they will put ads in your subdomain, and you will get 90% of the profit from the ads (more on this below). How great is this?

Seeding

This is what they call stories submitted by users. It’s really easy and fast. With a bookmarklet you can submit whatever you want in the blink of an eye. You’re able to add info to whatever you’re submitting, the basic categories, tags, and something new, location (more on this below).

Comments/Chat

Users are able to comment on every story, again with a great interface.
And something kind of new, chat. Pretty much like the live chat on Riffs, you’re able to chat with other people about the story you’re reading. Awesome.

Browsing

You can browse the site from the front page, with the most read stories, or you can select any category you want to read about. You’re also able to browse by tags, and see what’s new on a certain tag. This is made easy with Watchlists, which let you keep an eye on certain tags while you browse the site.
And a new feature, is that you can browse by location. Say you want to see what’s new on San Francisco, just pick the city from the Newsvine Region drop down menu (top right of any page), and you’ll see then all the stories which have the city as the location.

Get Paid

You’re given a subdomain, where you can write/add content, and you will earn 90% of the advertising revenue for your subdomain. Petty damn cool.
Though i believe there aren’t ads yet, but i’m sure they’ll show up when they go out of beta.
You’re also able to invite friends to Newsvine, if you do, you will earn 10% of the profits made from your friend’s subdomain. Great.

They’re in what they call “Private Beta”, and i believe sign ups are not available, unless you’ve been invited. Which i can do, so just leave a comment and i’ll see what i can do.

So far Newsvine is looking pretty hot, and i’m sure it’ll only get hotter with time.

Here’s the Flickr photoset i created with screenshots.

Here’s a more in depth review of Newsvine.