Zite, Flud, Pulse, Taptu, Flipboard, and Nuzzel are a sample of the cornucopia of ways to consume news on mobile. Each of these apps provides users a place to access personalized relevant news, amid the 24/7 news deluge.
Circa is the latest entrant and to some extent, it is re-imagining news on mobile. Its iOS news app went live on October 16, 2012 with a mission “to pursue a more pure definition of news with truths divorced from conjecture, opinion or biases analysis.” How Circa realizes the mission makes it a fresh departure from other news apps out there.
Circa is a sort-of news publishing combinatorial engine, powered by editors. The app uses editorial team to choose news from various top sources and then reconstruct each news story by piecing together modularized pertinent details like stats, maps, facts, quotes, pictures, and others. New details can be added to the news over time and those who follow the news will get a notification of the update. News are organized into collections and for now, there are only two — Top Stories and Election 2012.
Circa, Age of Brevity
The frequent use of Twitter allows us to develop skill to express thought within the confine of 140 characters. On Circa, brevity too characterizes each news story. But don't be fooled by the brevity, as it is possibly trying to epitomize Shakespeare's brevity is the soul of wit. The news I've been reading on Circa (so far) have undoubtedly helped me to gain a more meaningful understanding of current events.
However, the dependency on editors exposes the startup to the operational challenges like scale (number of editors) and scope (topics coverage). News reading experience on Circa may be tainted by selection biases (“which news to select?” "what data to display?") and impeded by its editors' realm of knowledge. Nevertheless, it is a force to be reckoned with if it can upscale its news production and position itself as a trusted news site. The stage is set and the key now is to captivate audience with great contents.
The startup is founded by CEO Matt Galligan, CTO Arsenio Santos, and Ben Huh. Investors include Dave Morin (Founder/CEO, Path), David Karp (Founder/CEO, Tumblr), David Cohen (Founder/CEO, TechStars), Soraya Darabi (Co-founder, Foodspotting), Maneesh Arora (Co-founder, MightyText), Gary Vaynerchuk, among others.
