Ben Huh, The Man Who Popularized Internet FAILs, Wants To Reinvent The News
Ben Huh has built an Internet empire on humor, pratfalls and a healthy dose of Schadenfreude. And now he wants to dramatically alter the way news is delivered.
AdAge: So how long until you expect a return on your investment from Circa?
Mr. Huh: That’s a good question. I don’t really know. For something as fundamentally woven into society as journalism, you give it longer. You’re not jumping into a fad. I think Circa has the opportunity to fundamentally change the way people consume the news. The team at Circa can predict its traffic by the number of people following their stories and which stories they’re going to update because readers follow stories and not topics or people. They also know what every individual knows from Circa. If I read a post that contained the location of Zanzibar, Circa now knows that I know where Zanzibar is. That’s an incredible amount of data that is going to fundamentally change the way journalists cover news stories.
