Since my introduction to the Internet, there have been several sites that served as landmark achievements for a given genre or medium. Google for serach, Amazon for shopping, Digg for technology news. Recently I’ve been happy to add one more item to this list, Mike Davidson’s Newsvine .

Fellow netizen and web advocate Jason and I both agreed on the cold November morning that Newsvine rolled out as a public beta that we were witnessing something very special indeed. You can think of Newsvine as a news aggregation site with a twist. Not only does it offer professional stories from the Associated Press, akin to a major news outlet like CNN.com, it also allows the everyday user to post both links and blog-esque editorial stories.

The environment created by this conglomeration of content is as fascinating as it is diverse. AP stories detailing the days events in Iraq are flanked by editorial articles from both left and right wing users, and every opinion between. Add to this the ability to both comment and chat on any story, and you begin to see the incredible amount of engaging content that Newsvine is serving up at any given moment.

Of course, that sheer quantity of news and opinion can quickly lead to information overload, which fortunately for us, the Newsvine creators have tempered with an array of impressively concise and elegant management tools. The site will automatically track comments on stories you post, which are separated from comments that come after something you’ve written in response to another member’s post.

Would you like to track activity on the site, but not be required to refresh the page every 5 minutes? The Newsvine crew has got you covered: from RSS and JSS to being able to “watch” individual authors that interest you, Newsvine goes to great lengths to bring content to you, rather than forcing you to search around for what peeks your interest.

And naturally underneath all of this you’ll find beautiful site design, highly intuitive Information Architecture, and sexy, sexy javascript.

If you’re looking for your next must-visit site, do yourself a favor and point your browser to www.newsvine.com: you won’t regret it.