msnNOW curates the web based on social media updates

Most news or social media services have trending topics or top stories, but MSN has just launched an entire site devoted to the principle. msnNOW culls topics from social media and search engines, including Twitter, Facebook, and Bing, then summarizes the story in 100 words or less and posts it, including an icon that indicates which site it’s from. It’s supposed to cover each piece of news with a “unique social angle” — from what we can see, that means a more casual house style than MSN’s home page and more stories about the web. There’s also a “biggest movers” bar, which displays what’s showing up dramatically more or less in search results and updates. Leaving aside the fact that it’s essentially a site that picks social media stories for you to share on social media, it’s interesting to see a dedicated web curation tool that relies on an actual staff, not a userbase, to generate content.