San Francisco Startup Stringwire Acquired by NBC

News gathering done at the source by Smartphone toting witnesses has been around for a while as the technology has grown and evolved. Twitter itself has become the go-to source for many kinds of widely witnessed breaking news, such as protests and plane crashes. Stepping up to the plate in support of this trend NBC News announced it has acquired the user-generated live video service Stringwire as part of an effort to beef up its newsgathering efforts. “Stringwire is at the leading edge of user-generated video products, with immediate value to our on-air and digital businesses,” explained Vivian Schiller, senior VP and chief digital Officer at NBC News. “You could get 30 people all feeding video, holding up their Smartphone’s and then we could look at that,” Schiller told the NY Times. “We’ll be able to publish and broadcast some of them.” For breaking news and stories, Stringwire has the ability to recruit and direct contributors based on geographical location via Twitter and then to instantly access their live footage. According to Schiller NBC will utilize Stringwire’s technology to provide its TV and digital platforms with new tools for newsgathering and for using eyewitness user-generated video content.