Cirqle: social networking super-simplified

The launch of the app Cirqle symbolizes our wish to move away from the complicated mess present in social networks of the past. In Cirqle, made for iOS first, we're seeing the likes of Instagram, Twitter, and Google+ turned into one extremely simple app. It's photo sharing made just about as tiny as it can be.

You'll connect with friends through Facebook, Twitter, or Email. From there, you'll create Cirqles. Inside these Cirqles, you can share media albums – photos and video – the way you'd like.

These albums can be based on location, based on event, or based on whatever else you'd like. I've made a SlashGear Cirqle just this afternoon – I'll use it to post images of review products we've got in the pipeline and see how it goes.

Above you'll see an example of an embedded Cirqle post. At the moment things are very stripped-down. Mouse-over or tap and you'll find more information about the image and what Cirqle it's in – and what you can do with it. Below you'll see the entire Cirqle.

The sharing and embedding abilities of Cirqle are impressive. Right off the bat you'll find the ability to switch off and on interactivity (commenting), image/video only, change the size of the media, mute sound, and AutoPlay video (where applicable).

Above you'll see the basic steps in editing a photo then uploading to a Cirqle – or creating your own, of course. Below are a couple examples of how posts look in the app.

It would seem that this network is ready to go regardless of the fact that it's only just been released. Impressively ready to roll immediately.

The team behind Cirqle will need to ramp up membership, most of all – after that there's no limit to what this sort of platform could do. It's all free, too. Made for iPhone first, this app is available on the iTunes app store right now.