• All Things Digital, Wednesday, April 20, 2011 12:19 PM

News.me, Bit.ly's social news iPad app, is expected to debut any minute. "Our understanding is that News.me is launching tomorrow", The New York Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy, tells MediaMemo. The NYT should know because it reportedly helped develop News.me in its early stages. When it does debut, News.me will offer users curated Twitter streams that highlight "the most popular or interesting news stories" that appear in their own Twitter feeds, and from the feeds of other Twitter users they select.

"The notion is that users can read over the shoulder of people they find interesting," as MediaMemo's Peter Kafka explains. The service will cost $0.99 a week, or $34.99 a year -- either as an iPad app, using Apple's subscription service, or as an e-mail newsletter. People will no doubt discuss whether users should pay for content they can access online for free. "But to me, the most interesting thing about News.me is that it's an aggregator blessed by some publishers that haven't always been hospitable to aggregators," Kafka writes.

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