Circa, the news service for iOS and Android that breaks down news stories into bite-sized chunks, has today launched a website to go with its mobile apps.
The service, which has its own in-house news team, previously exclusively surfaced its bite-sized news via the mobile apps and allowed readers to subscribe to stories they’re interested in.
Today’s website launch means that the news is more widely accessible, particularly for people who might not be on a mobile device all day long. While mobile is a great place to consume news, it’s not always the right one and the company wanted to be available everywhere.
Circa’s new website is gorgeous, and it’s something that wasn’t done lightly. TNW spoke with Matt Galligan, CEO and co-founder of Circa, who told us that it was a long time in the making, but “we finally got ourselves to a place where we were ready to launch.”
All of Circa’s experiences are built in-house alongside the news team, but the company is only made up of 22 employees right now. Its mobile apps are developed by an internal team, along with the new website, which is fully responsive and works on tablets, phones and your desktop browser.
Everything users have come to expect from its mobile apps is there; the simple design, easy to digest format and daily briefs. You can subscribe to stories directly from the website and the service will keep you up to date with them on its mobile apps.
Galligan says that the goal with the site is to “get you caught up as soon as you arrive” and offer a new way to lay out stories, which may eventually find their way down into the mobile apps too.
Galligan told us that the follow feature in Circa does “amazing things for our readers” and is a hugely compelling way for the company to get readers to come back continually. He said that when somebody follows a story, their likelihood of coming back after 30 days is much higher and the company is thinking of interesting ways to build that out further.
Circa’s website launch comes just after Flipboard launches its own for the first time, but Galligan says they’re not competing with them directly. He told us that “they solve different purposes” because while “aggregators are solving discovery, we’re trying to get right to the point and share exactly what’s going on.”
Building a website for Circa makes a lot of sense for the company, since it not only will help raise awareness of the service but ultimately should help drive traffic back to the mobile app.
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