Online news players big and small are tripping over themselves to build Facebook applications.

The editor of Novotya Gazeta, the newspaper that employed slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, said the identity of her killer is known, but not that of whoever might have ordered her murder.

Staff at Newsday got a start when they saw three of the paper's Pulitzer prize medals listed on eBay (if you want to buy some as an alternative to earning them, they were going for US$15,500).

From the NYT:

Newsvine looks nothing like the usual news Web site. On a given day, the site can hold dozens of user comments about a British newspaper analysis of trans-Atlantic relations; a first-person essay by an American soldier titled “What My Life in Iraq Is Like” and a link to a new music video by Avril Lavigne.

As a social news source, Newsvine directly reflects the interests of its audience by encouraging users to write articles, comment on other articles and post links to relevant sites. And now it is getting a corporate parent: MSNBC Interactive News is expected to announce its acquisition of the company today, in a move that accentuates the increasing importance of community features on news Web sites.

The deal represents the first acquisition in the 11-year history of MSNBC.com and one of the first times that a leading news Web site has purchased a social news source. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Here's the Newsvine seed on this very topic. And here's some others:

• MSNBC acquires Newsvine
• The future of Newsvine and what it means to you
• Newsvine hits the Bigtime - Where does that leave you and me?