Circa Reimagines News Delivery and Consumption in a Mobile World
By Karla Robinson
October 31, 2012
October 31, 2012
- Unlike tablets, which are well suited for news consumption, “the phone is dramatically different,” says Matt Galligan, CEO of mobile news app Circa. “You’re in line waiting for the subway or you’re in line for coffee and it’s kind of ‘gap time.’ Lengthy articles are very time intensive and attention intensive, and they are tough to consume on the phone.”
- Circa was launched by Cheezburger Network CEO Ben Huh and co-founder Galligan with a goal to rethink the production of news in today’s fast-paced mobile society.
- “The main idea is that the traditional article or story format that newspapers and other news outlets have produced for so many years no longer fits with the way we produce or consume information now,” writes GigaOM. “The standard ‘inverted pyramid’-style article was designed for the days when people might only see one report about a news event, printed on dead trees and without links, so it had to include virtually everything.”
- “Now, however,” the article continues, “the news has become more of a process than an artifact, with multiple reports from different sources, updates, social links and other elements added over time. But news-reading formats remain more or less the same as they have always been.”
- Circa looks to take advantage of that “gap time” by condensing news stories into small easily-consumed bits.
- Galligan explains that Circa breaks news down into its “atomic units” rather than offering the entire news article. The units typically consist of facts, background information and other elements such as photos and quotes. The user has the option of what to read at any given time.
- These “atomic units” allow articles to be updated with incoming information and users can “follow” a topic to be alerted about developments.
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