CircLabs’ Bill Densmore on tracking readers’ habits to build new revenue streams for news organizations

By Joshua Benton

CircLabs, the hard-to-describe startup that aims to create new revenue streams for news sites, has detailed a little more about its plans. And Martin Langeveld, who’s involved in the project, has written more about it too. (You know Martin from his writings here.) Their initial product, Circulate, seems to be a browser plugin that tracks your browsing patterns and information you give it to recommend content you might like. CircLabs promises publishers a variety of potential revenue streams off that model, including the ability to use Circulate as a pay wall or a micropayments engine.

CircLabs is an offshoot of the work Bill Densmore did on what he called the Information Valet Project as a fellow at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. I talked with Bill a couple months ago about his work on IVP; the video of our conversation is above. While IVP covered a broader set of ideas than Circulate does, I think it helps explain what the new project is all about. Full transcript below. Keep reading »

Circlabs: a new entry in the options for sustaining journalism

By Martin Langeveld

Full disclosure right up front: I’m one of the partners launching the venture described herein.

This morning in Washington, D.C., Jeff Vander Clute and I announced the formation of CircLabs, a technology company based in Silicon Valley that’s building a new service to finance online news.  CircLabs has seed funding from the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri.

The announcement was part of a one-day conference entitled “From Gatekeeper to Information Valet: Work Plans for Sustaining Journalism,” organized by Bill Densmore, another partner in the project along with Joe Bergeron, a Silicon Valley software engineer.

CircLabs plans a suite of services, the first of which is code-named “Circulate.”  Software development on Circulate is underway, and we anticipate launching the service during the second half of this year.

Circulate will address the challenges of how to increase traffic to media-affiliated websites, secure relationships with online users and enhance the value of news.  The Associated Press has been cooperating with us and is supportive of the service. We anticipate including a variety of strategic partners — unique investors necessary for continued development after the launch of Circulate.

Circulate is an outgrowth of research led by Bill Densmore, who was a 2008-2009 Reynolds Fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri.

Circulate will provide new and convenient ways for the Web to “come to” users, including social functionality that integrates, at their option, with their social network accounts.

Keep reading »