Mobile news app Circa fails to find a buyer, goes on indefinite break

Circa was a niche news app that took a mobile-first approach to information curation. It was a cool app with a decent number of downloads and an impressive average rating on Google’s Play Store, but apparently that just wasn’t enough to help sustain the company.

The co-founder of Circa, Matt Galligan, released a statement today announcing that the app/service will be taking an indefinite hiatus after failing to be purchased by a bigger company. Circa developers looked at multiple monetization options, but none of them really fit what was considered the focus of the company, which lead to this situation where Circa would either be acquired by another more profitable company, or it would be doomed. Looks like the latter happened.

Galligan isn’t all doom and gloom about Circa’s fate, though. He considers the project a success, just not a financial win. Many of the features Circa offered, including news curation and daily briefings, searchable news, and customizable topics, are all available in other competing news apps, which is certainly a testament to how Circa may have influenced the news app market in a particular direction.

Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult for a small app like Circa to compete with some of the bigger fish in the pond. Apps like Flipboard have support from enormous companies like Samsung, and bigger tech giants offer their own news applications, like Google’s Newsstand. And if we don’t count those major players, news apps are extremely common in the Play Store, so standing out (and managing to actually turn a profit) is a very tricky thing to do. It just didn’t pay off for Circa.

Whatever happens from here on out, Galligan says he’d like to keep the spirit and technology of Circa alive, so you’ll likely see some of the developers and writers from the service moving on to other projects, bringing their expertise with them. Who knows, maybe someone like Google or Microsoft will scoop most of them up and put them to good use.

source: Circa

via: Mashable

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