‘Examiner’ teaming up to share content on hyper-local platform
Area residents will soon be able to join together in a hyper-local news and media platform to learn about community events, discuss current issues and share with others who have similar passions and interests through the upcoming launch of Capsule for the Logan County community.
Founder, Chris Asman said the company is excited to offer a tailored experience, enabling individuals to have a hyper-focused news and media feed that revolves around what’s important to them, not the people they follow.
The Capsules created within the online platform come to life through community moderation and content sharing around any particular topic or event.
“Capsules can be created for anything – an event like a football game or music festival, or a topic of discussion like the upcoming midterm elections, ” Asman said. “It’s a central place for a whole community to gather and share articles, photos, videos, and more, which creates a very rich content experience around a singular topic.”
“It’s hard to stay up to speed with the topics and communities each of us cares about because the way we discover and consume information is heavily influenced by the apps we use and what’s important to the people we follow.”
Asman, who grew up in Columbus and studied at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business, said he started to think about building software applications toward the end of high school, but didn’t actually begin developing products until his sophomore year in college.
“I realized that I was really interested in business my sophomore year of high school, but it was later into my junior year that I really became fascinated by software development,” he said.
“Identifying problems and ideating technology solutions to issues I experienced myself was something that I really enjoyed, and I was able to start exploring that a bit more through a job my sophomore year of college.”
From those interests, his first technology company was born and began with a similar venture, offering a specialized fenced-in social network for high schools and colleges to help forge connections among students and staff.
“It was a great way for those schools, staff and clubs to be able to communicate information effectively with the rest of the school, and for students to be able to meet others who share a mutual interest or learn about relevant opportunities around them.
“What we took away from that venture was an understanding of how a hyper-focused community could result in people building real relationships with real people around them.”
Capsule aims to give people a better news experience that puts their community front and center, and many businesses and organizations in Logan County will be utilizing Capsule to share content with local residents, including the Bellefontaine Examiner.
The Examiner staff is working in conjunction with Asman and the Capsule team to help provide daily local content to the news and media platform.
“We believe Capsule will ‘raise the bar’ for what the digital news experience should be, and that it will help the newspaper to thrive in today’s very digital world,” Examiner General Manager T.J. Hubbard said.
“Capsule is a one-of-a-kind, user-focused experience, and the Examiner is excited to be part of this new venture.”
Capsule will be launching in Logan County later this month. To learn more and sign up to receive updates before launch, visit thecapsuleapp.com.