Circulate™ is about sustaining journalism

Incubated at the University of Missouri's Reynolds Journalism Institute and supported by The Associated Press, Circulate was created by people who care about journalism and want to create new connections between publishers and consumers of news.

Circulate may be likened to a hyperpersonalized news stream, more user-friendly than search, RSS, bookmarking or aggregator sites as a way for consumers to find news content they want and need.

It works via a browser add-on that incrementally learns a user's demographics, interests and preferences while respecting user privacy. It places a small, expandable bar across the top of the user's screen (the Circulate Bar), in which it delivers content recommendations and advertising relevant to the user's profile.

Circulate also enables social interactions and can be upgraded over time with a wide variety of icon-accessible applications. Users surveyed have repeatedly said they would use such a service that brings them content they care about.

Circulate™ works for you as a news publisher:

By facilitating relationships directly between news consumers and you as a publisher of authoritative information

Consumers discover Circulate because you promote it in your publications and on your Web sites. Circulate is a slim browser notification tool that can remain at the top of the consumer's screen, no matter where they travel online. Once consumers sign up for Circulate, your publisher brand becomes their "home base" and is always displayed as part of the Circulate Bar.

By exposing your content across the Web to a wide, receptive audience

Any story you publish may be recommended to any Circulate user on the Web in response to that user's specific interests, a connection that might never be made otherwise. And Circulate works to make those connections 100 percent of the time users are online, not just the small fraction of time they spend at your site. As Circulate learns more about a consumer, it provides more and more valuable content recommendations, exposing more and more content from participating publishers.

By driving traffic to your Web sites

Every story recommended and shown to a Circulate user carries links back to the site of the originating publisher, and creates the opportunity for multiple incremental page views at that site.

By sharing revenue from high-value, preference-targeted advertising published wherever the consumer views your content

Whether delivered through the Circulate bar or on your own site, a Circulate-recommended news story can carry high-value advertising (including, at your option, local advertising sold by your staff) that is relevant to the consumer's expressed demographics, preferences and interests. Because of this, it creates value for the consumer in the same way that search advertising does.

By enabling experimentation with premium content delivery

For publishers who have high-value content consumers will pay for on a site subscription, networked subscription or per-item basis, Circulate can provide transactions, account management and fulfillment functionality.

See also our FAQ answer to "How can Circulate help my business grow?"

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