WebProNews

Google News had the news-aggregation space to itself for quite a while, but after MSN deployed its Newsbot and Topix.net launched, other efforts followed, and some have gathered a little venture capital for themselves.

Topix.net's CEO Rich Skrenta listed a number of sites and efforts that seek to "tag, aggregate or community-edit the news." Digg, Memeorandum, Findory, and several others make his list, along with Topix.net.

Skrenta also noted Gather, the Boston-based outfit that wants to share advertising revenue with its bloggers. Gather picked up $9 million in VC funding according to Skrenta, but the Boston Globe reported that figure at $6 million plus a power forward.

One figure Skrenta cited, $5 million in VC money to Newsvine, has been disputed. Mike Davidson, Newsvine's CEO, responded to a post by Paul Montgomery on Tinfinger about Skrenta's blog entry. (I didn't lose anyone just now, did I? - david)

"As for our funding, yeah, it's not a 300k seed round, but it's not $5 million either. Somewhere mysteriously in-between," Davidson wrote.

Equally mysterious is Memeorandum, about which Skrenta claimed he's heard "hints" that founder Gabe Rivera has accepted an unknown sum in VC cash. That hasn't been confirmed anywhere yet, though.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.