MSNBC.com today purchased social news site Newsvine, the first purchase it the site’s 11-year history. Add to this the word from Forbes that Yahoo is currently at work on either an entirely new social news site or incorporating social news into their existing Yahoo News property and it should be abundantly clear: social news continues its push on the mainstream media and will not be going away anytime soon.

I’ve been a member of Newsvine since it launched in March of 2006 and it’s always been very impressive to me. I think on the fundamental level what I’ve liked the most is that it reminds me of a traditional newspaper in both look and feel but is run by its users. While sharing existing links is obviously a big part of the site, writing columns directly on the site has set it apart from some of the other social news sites in this realm.

Another big difference and huge plus for the site is that they offer revenue sharing with users. While Digg rakes in millions of dollars via ad deals with the likes of Microsoft, they keep it all despite its users doing the work that makes the site what it is; Newsvine on the other hand gives participating users monthly distribution of revenues which can be paid out via PayPal once you hit $10 or by physical check once you hit $50 (compare this with Google AdSense which requires you earn $100 before they pay you).

Newsvine’s CEO has stated that the company will continue to operate independently which is excellent news (especially when you see that in MSNBC.com’s own write up of the purchase they erroneously refer to the site as ‘Netvine’ and they link to Netscape.com as a competitor when of course those of us in the know realize that Netscape is back to a portal and the site they mean to link to is now called Propeller).

As for Yahoo’s endeavour, it’ll be interesting to see what they come up with for their take on social media as they continue the long road back towards buzz-worthiness if not relevance in the tech community. Obviously they already own Del.icio.us, and would be wise to utilize that in such a venture.