
Why Circa failed - amitkumar01
http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/24/8842009/why-circa-failed
======
guiambros
> _Circa was cold and rational at a time when journalism was becoming more
> entertaining and emotional_

Too bad, the reason I liked Circa was _exactly_ the cold, rational, to-the-
point approach, wrapped in a nice and usable app.

~~~
ksec
Crap, when i just thought the world needs better journalism that are rational,
less entertaining and more to the point, while reporting from neutral
perspective.....

------
pwelch
I actually liked Circa. I think there is a need for a just the facts articles.

~~~
protomyth
Yeah, the point from the article "Circa was cold and rational at a time when
journalism was becoming more entertaining and emotional." This isn't
journalism, its become punditry. I would also love a just the facts news
source.

~~~
amyjess
Mind you, The Verge is a publication that has loudly and aggressively defended
its biases, saying that biased journalism is better than unbiased journalism.

As far as I'm concerned, The Verge isn't a real journalistic outlet and
shouldn't be seriously. They're half an Apple shill blog and half a left-wing
political publication. That's not journalism.

~~~
lotso
What left-wing political journalism is coming from The Verge? Support for net
neutrality and being anti-gamergate?

~~~
seivan
You're joking right? Identity politics is (in my opinion extreme) left-wing
stance on problems.

------
pholz
I liked Circa, especially its "breaking news" feature. The only reason I
didn't use it that much was that it was very US-centric (I live in Europe). In
particular, it would give me "breaking news" about some US sports celebrities
I'd never heard of. Other that that, I really liked the way it structured
stories that unfolded over time.

------
sparkzilla
Circa failed because it used expensive journalists to create what should have
been cheap aggregated content. The content itself had little added value
compared with thousands of other daily news sites. Aggregators need to keep
costs low and volume high -- Circa had this backwards.

~~~
hboon
I haven't tried every other news service/app, but other than summarising news,
being able to track the development of specific news items was also great. The
content quality definitely beats many other aggregators.

I hope they make it through this.

~~~
efuquen
> I hope they make it through this.

Unless I'm misinterpreting something in the article or your comment, I thought
it was pretty clear that they didn't and are shutting down for good?

[https://medium.com/circa/farewell-to-circa-
news-7d002150f74b](https://medium.com/circa/farewell-to-circa-
news-7d002150f74b)

~~~
hboon
> Note: In the interest of continued negotiations around Circa, we will not be
> speaking to the press about ceased production.

Also reading a couple of tweets or reports that they are still looking for
funding.

Sounds like unless there's a miracle, they will be shutting down for good
though since many (most?) of the team has left. One could only hope.

------
joshontheweb
I tried circa when it first came out. I failed to find a reason to prefer it
over subscribing to the pertinent subs on Reddit for the news I wanted.

The beauty of Reddit and HN is that you can glance at the comments first and
usually know instantly whether the article is worth your time. Of course this
only works on the smaller communities on reddit. The front page stuff is just
drowned in jokes and quips.

Additionally, many experts and thought leaders are active in both communities
and actively comment. This helps immensely to cut through rhetoric and
falsities in the content.

------
btbuildem
"We’re trying to make it so that people educate themselves for 5 minutes as
opposed to play Angry Birds," Galligan said.

Yup, that'd do it.. if you predicate your success on changing human nature,
you're gonna have a hard time.

Circa had some very good elements - following the stories, and the clean no-
nonsense layout. I was very excited about it when it first came out (and mad
at them, because I thought they'd built something I was trying to make). After
a while I noticed I used the app less and less - partially because it was a
bit buggy on iOS, partially because I could not share stories outside of the
app (they eventually fixed that).

------
lotso
Although they don't have summaries for every article, the NYTNow app is
probably my favorite implementation of these snack-sized newsreader apps.

They have daily and nightly briefings that contain ~10-15 short paragraph
summaries that link to a longform article if you want to dive deep. They also
link to their favorite NYTimes articles from today and their favorite articles
from other publications. I've pretty much stopped using the main NYTimes app
on my phone now.

They also made recently made it free. Sorry if this sounds like an advert, but
I really can't say how much I enjoy using it.

~~~
JaggedJax
Is there a Circa or NYT Now alternative for Android? Circa was great and NYT
Now apparently has no plans to make an Android version any time soon.

------
7Figures2Commas
From _Free Spending by Startups Stir Memories of Dot-Com Era Excesses_
published in the Wall Street Journal on October 5, 2014:

> Matt Galligan, co-founder and chief executive of Circa 1605 Inc., which runs
> a mobile application for news, says rent on his 3,000-square-foot office in
> SoMa has roughly doubled since the company moved in two years ago. But the
> rent and renovations to expose the brick walls weren’t “unnecessary burn,”
> he says. His 12 employees “are spending nearly a third of their life there,”
> he says. “It helps for it to be a positive experience.”

I guess exposed brick walls do come in handy when you need something to bang
your head against.

[1] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/startups-spend-with-abandon-
flus...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/startups-spend-with-abandon-flush-with-
capital-1412549853)

------
snth
Circa was great. It was exactly what I wanted.

I suspect it failed because, as is snuck into a middle paragraph, "... Circa
never turned itself into a business." All of the other complaints in this
article were positives (or at least "don't care"s) for me.

------
prawn
I tried Circa because I have interest in this category of app/site but it
didn't stick and I can't remember when I last looked at it. I'm surprised
there haven't been more solid plays at the abbreviated news area, even despite
the content component itself being challenging.

If you have expertise in this field, I've got a concept I'd be keen to
collaborate on. It'd need iOS/Android development and someone handling
content. My usual app guy is wrapped up in other projects. Email in my
profile. It'd work as a skunkworks thing within a media company or a second
project by a news startup even.

------
TheAdamist
Circa failed because I've seen several articles about it failing and had never
even heard about it while it was operating. They got their PR backwards.

------
mhomde
...or maybe it just had a higher burn rate than income... and failed to
generate enough hype to attract venture capital

