German-based business networking firm Xing announced Friday that it acquired U.S. social network Socialmedian for US$7.5 million, Computer Business Review (CBR) reported. The social network is expected to have news networking as a result of the deal.

Users may join "news networks" focusing on different issues and may receive updated news stories as well as share the content within their social network, CBR reported. The news articles are collected from around 19,000 outlets (such as Digg, Twitter and Google Reader) and are then filtered according to a user's social networking contracts.

Almost 510,000 of Xing's users pay nearly $90 per year for a premium account with full networking capabilities. Xing's revenue between January and September this year was $32 million, CBR reported. Socialmedian's mostly professional user base adds up to 7 million people.

The company's main business social network competitor is LinkedIn. Since 2006, Xing has turned its attention towards acquiring "smaller, country-specific" business networks in Europe. It has already bought Spain's eConozco and Neurona and has merged Turkey's Cember into its own network in 2007, according to CBR.