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Circa

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Primary website:
cir.ca

Primary Twitter:
@circa

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Editor’s Note: Encyclo has not been regularly updated since August 2014, so information posted here is likely to be out of date and may be no longer accurate. It’s best used as a snapshot of the media landscape at that point in time.

Circa is a mobile-only app for reading news that presents stories as collections of facts from various sources.

For its focus on presenting news the way readers want it on their phones—in short chunks, added to as a story changes—Circa has been hailed as an example of the “post-article” news world. Its minimalist design breaks stories up into pieces easily viewable on a phone screen. Users can follow stories of interest and receive updates as new facts, statistics, or images are added. Circa relies heavily on aggregation while using editors to string together the content.

The app was founded by Cheezburger Network’s Ben Huh and launched in October 2012. It released an updated focused on breaking news a year later.

By June 2013, the company employed 14 people producing 40 to 60 stories every day.

Peers, allies, & competitors:

Summly, Storify, Quartz, Flipboard, Upworthy

Recent Nieman Lab coverage:

April 1, 2025 / Sarah Scire

A Hungarian investigative news site finds YouTube success with an “old-fashioned” documentary — A decade ago, journalist András Pethő co-founded the nonprofit investigative site Direkt36. He’d just resigned from Origo, one of Hungary’s leading news sites, over political pressure on the newsroom. Origo...

April 1, 2025 / Laura Hazard Owen

In 2011, NPR executives “drafted a secret plan for the worst” — What would happen if Congress defunded NPR and PBS — something Republicans have renewed their push for following a House hearing last week? First things first: “The funding bill passed by Congress and signed into...

March 31, 2025 / Neel Dhanesha

ProPublica wanted to find more sources in the federal government. So it brought a truck. — On the morning of February 27, USAID workers who had been fired or placed on administrative leave during the Trump administration’s sudden dismantling of the agency went back to their offices at the Reagan Building and...

March 31, 2025 / Sarah Scire

Far fewer Americans are hearing about Trump’s attacks on the media this time around, report finds — Austin, Texas — The first time Donald Trump attacked White House reporter Ashley Parker by name on social media was in 2019. It was worrying and unsettling but Parker quickly focused on a silver lining. “There wa...

March 27, 2025 / Sophie Culpepper

How can we reach beyond the local news choir? Spotlight PA’s founding editor has ideas — As LinkedIn post ledes go, Spotlight PA CEO and editor Christopher Baxter’s on a post last week was intriguing: “I recently had lunch with a staunch, pro-Trump Republican and highly successful business leader, and hi...

All Lab posts on Circa »

Recently around the web, from Mediagazer:

All Mediagazer posts on Circa »

Primary author: Sarah Darville. Main text last updated: June 13, 2014.

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