Quartz (publication)

Quartz is a business-focused English-language international news organization, it launched from New York City in 2012, and is owned by Japanese business media company Uzabase (Japanese: ユーザベース).[5][6][7] It operates editions globally, outside of the United States and Japan, including in the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Africa, and India.[8] [9] The Quartz website and newsletters began as free digital news publications with no paywalls nor registration requirements. In 2018, it launched a paid membership product; in 2019, a paywall limited users to read 5 articles per month.

Quartz
Available inEnglish
OwnerUzabase, Inc. via Quartz Media, Inc.
Key peopleJay Lauf, Zach Seward, Kate Weber
Revenue$27.6 million (2017)[1]
URLqz.com
Alexa rank 2,477 [2] (global, June 2020)
CommercialYes
LaunchedSeptember 24, 2012 (2012-09-24)
Quartz
Stable release
Android2.0.3 / October 22, 2019 (2019-10-22) [3]
iOS2.0.4 / November 4, 2019 (2019-11-04)[4]
Operating systemAndroid 6.0+, iOS 11.2+
Size24 MB (Android)
27.2 MB (iOS)
Websiteqz.com/ 

Quartz targets high-earning readers, calling itself a "digitally native news outlet for business people in the new global economy".[10][11] Sixty percent of its readers access the site via mobile devices, and nearly half of its readers are outside the United States.

In August 2017, Quartz's website saw more than 22 million unique visitors.[12] More than 700,000 people subscribe to its roster of email newsletters, which includes its flagship Daily Brief.[13]

According to AdAge, Quartz made around $30 million in revenue in 2016, and employed 175 people.[14] The same year, Harvard's Nieman Lab described Quartz as "among the fastest-growing and most closely watched digital news sites".[15][16]

In 2017, revenue decreased to $27.6 million as advertising shrank.[1] Uzabase purchased the organization for between $75 and $110 million.

History

According to a press release, the name Quartz was chosen for reasons related to its branding and the unusual combination of two infrequently used letters, q and z, in the title.[10]

On September 24, 2012, Quartz launched its website, designed to deliver content primarily to mobile and tablet users. Its founding team members were from news organizations including Bloomberg, The Economist, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.[17][18] According to its website, Quartz's team reports in 115 countries and speaks 19 languages.[19] The publication was initially led by Kevin Delaney, a former managing director of WSJ.com, Zach Seward, a former WSJ social media editor, and Gideon Lichfield, a global news editor from The Economist, among other editors.[10]

Quartz's main office is located in New York. It also has correspondents and staff reporters based in Hong Kong, India, London, Los Angeles, Thailand, Washington, DC, and elsewhere.[19]

According to Mashable, Quartz surpassed the United States web traffic of The Economist in 2013, and was closing in on that of the Financial Times.[20]

In 2014, Quartz expanded into India, launching Quartz India. In 2015, it launched Quartz Africa.[21][22]

In 2015, it launched Atlas, a chart-building platform.[23] The publication has since launched Quartz at Work, a vertical that focuses on careers and the workplace, and Quartzy, a culture and lifestyle vertical.

In July 2018, Japanese company Uzabase acquired Quartz from Atlantic Media.[24]

In October 2019, co-CEO and editor in chief Kevin Delaney, stepped down from his position. Zach Seward, the company's second employee, will be the company's new chief executive officer.[25] That same month Apple removed the Quartz app from its Chinese App Store, as part of the Great Firewall, for reporting on the 2019 Hong Kong protests.[26][27][28]

Content

In traditional newspaper "beats", news is divided into sections such as domestic, business and finance, and world economy. However, Quartz is structured around a collection of phenomena or "obsessions".[29] Quartz global news editor Gideon Lichfield wrote that instead of using a fixed beats structure, its newsroom is structured around a collection of phenomena or patterns, trends, and seismic shifts that shape the world its readers live in. That structure, according to Lichfield, allows the organization to follow larger phenomena and adapt to pattern changes more quickly. [30]

Quartz extensively uses charts, created through their Atlas tool. The tool is also now used by many media organizations, including CNBC, FiveThirtyEight, NBC News, New Hampshire Public Radio, NPR, The New Yorker, The Press-Enterprise, CEOWORLD magazine, and The Wall Street Journal.[31][32]

References

  1. "Quartz, Atlantic Media's Business News Start-Up, Is Sold to Japanese Firm". New York Times. 2 July 2018. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  2. "qz.com Site Info". Alexa Internet.
  3. "Quartz - Apps on Google Play". play.google.com.
  4. "Quartz". App Store.
  5. Purdy, Chase (2 July 2018). "Quartz is being sold to Uzabase, a Japanese business media company". Quartz. Archived from the original on 2 July 2018.
  6. Heath, Thomas (2 July 2018). "Atlantic Media sells Quartz to Japanese media company". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on 3 July 2018.
  7. "About". Quartz. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  8. "UAE". Quartz. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  9. Jackson, Jasper (3 November 2015). "Quartz Africa site to launch in June". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
  10. Sonderman, Jeff (17 September 2012). "5 things journalists should know about Quartz, Atlantic Media's business news startup". Poynter. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
  11. "About Quartz". Quartz. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  12. "Thank you, readers: Quartz is turning five years old. Here's what comes next". Quartz. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  13. "Why Quartz has gone niche with newsletter topics". Digiday. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  14. "Quartz said to near $30 million in revenue, without clickbait or standard ad units". AdAge. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  15. "Thank you, readers: Quartz is turning five years old. Here's what comes next". Quartz. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  16. "Quartz sees its readers' behaviors evolving, so it's evolving with them: It's launching its first major app". Nieman Lab. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  17. "The Atlantic Launches Mobile-First Business Publication". Mashable. 24 September 2012. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  18. "Atlantic Media business website, Quartz, staffs up and strategizes". Politico. 28 May 2012. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  19. "Welcome to Quartz". Quartz. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  20. "'Quartz' Passes 'The Economist' in U.S. Web Traffic, 'Mashable'". Mashable. 15 August 2013. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  21. Jackson, Jasper. "Quartz Africa site to launch in June". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  22. "Africa rising: Why and how Quartz, GE (Media) want in". fipp.com. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  23. "Quartz's Atlas becomes open platform for building charts, data visualizations". ijnet.org. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
  24. "Japan's Uzabase to acquire online news platform Quartz". The Associated Press. 3 July 2018.
  25. ago, Sara Jerde|1 day. "Quartz Searches for New Editor in Chief After Co-Founder Departs". www.adweek.com. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  26. Miller, Chance (9 October 2019). "Apple removes 'Quartz' news app from Chinese App Store". 9to5Mac. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
  27. Statt, Nick (9 October 2019). "Apple removes Quartz news app from the Chinese App Store over Hong Kong coverage". The Verge. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
  28. Leskin, Paige (10 October 2019). "Here are all the major US tech companies blocked behind China's 'Great Firewall'". Business Insider. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  29. "The newsonomics of Quartz, 19 months in". Nieman Lab. May 2015. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
  30. "What happens when news organizations move from "beats" to "obsessions"?". Nieman Lab. September 2012. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
  31. "The most important things we learned in our first two years of chartbuildering". quartzthings.tumblr.com. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  32. "Quartz maps a future for its interactive charts with Atla". Nieman Lab. June 2015. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.