Customized news is nothing new.  In fact the process of creating a customized news portal using NetVibes or Google is very straight forward.  But Congoo is taking a different approach by adding a social networking layer above the news.

Anyone can create their own news portal which takes content from over 25,000 free sources and 300 premium sources.  Instead of adding an RSS feed, or keyword to gather news, you can select a fairly specific topic area (or focus) and then drill it down with keywords.

The “social networking” aspect of the site features the ability to comment on any news article on your portal and to “favorite” other news portals or “circles”

As an example, I created a news circle at www.congoo.com/tap