According to the publishers: Quartz is designed to serve digitally savvy business professionals who travel the world, are focused on international markets, and value critical, forward-looking coverage of the new global economy.
“Atlantic Media Company has endeavored to bring high-quality digital content to influential readers around the United States, and we are proud of our success,” said Smith. “With Quartz, we are expanding our mission to serve the needs of an important new audience—business leaders who live and work around the world. Quartz’s goal is to be the 24/7 digital guide to the new global business order, providing international business leaders with the information and analysis they need to succeed.”
Quartz is a website optimized for mobile phones and tablets. And as an HTML5 web app, it works seamlessly across a range of devices, from smartphones to desktop computers. It does not need to be downloaded from an app store and can be accessed simply by going to qz.com.
Quartz is free and built for social distribution: there are no pay walls, registration walls, or app store walls. The site’s radically simple, responsive design helps readers get essential information as quickly as possible.
Quartz’s staff is focused on core topics of seismic importance that fall into three main categories: news, commentary, and lifestyle, and management. Coverage will be rooted in what Quartz calls “obsessions,” the patterns, trends, and tectonic shifts that shape the world in which global business professionals live.
Initial core obsessions include the impact of shifting energy supplies around the world; the explosion of the mobile web; the growth and habits of the consumer class; China’s economic deceleration; the rise of digital payment systems; life and business in a world of low interest rates; the roots of the next financial crisis; the future of Europe; and the role of the modern state.
Quartz will also feature agenda-setting commentary on business, economics, and society by leading thinkers around the world. Content will flow through Quartz 24/7, targeting its English-speaking but firmly international audience. Writers in Europe and Asia will update the site during the working day in their time zones. They will also contribute to Quartz’s daily global briefing, which will be set to hit email inboxes with updated versions tailored for the mornings in Asia, Europe, and North America.
“Like Wired in the 1990s and The Economist in the 1840s, Quartz embodies the era in which it is being created,” said Quartz Editor in Chief Kevin J. Delaney (pictured). “We are publishing journalism that’s purely digital and framed by a broad worldview. Today’s launch is the beginning of an ongoing process of innovation around the best ways to report and deliver information to Quartz readers worldwide. ”
Delaney has assembled a staff of veteran journalists from some of the world’s most prestigious news organizations. Among them, they have reported from 115 countries and speak 19 languages. (Quartz’s development and reporting staff also knows 19 programming languages.)
Beginning this week, Quartz content will also be available on the ground-breaking social magazine, Flipboard, which offers beautiful magazine-like experiences of Web content on the iPad and other platforms. Flipboard has more than 20 million users, with 3 billion flips per month.
“Quartz is pioneering how to launch a publication, and by working with them, we hope to demonstrate how new publications can reach millions of mobile readers,” said Christina Mace-Turner, head of partnerships at Flipboard. “We are excited to bring our readers stories from Quartz about what's going on in business around the world.”
Quartz is ad-supported and its launch sponsors are Boeing, Cadillac, Chevron, and Credit Suisse. In 2013 Quartz will be accepting advertising from other clients.
For more information, please visit qz.com. You can also follow Quartz on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, Sina Weibo, and App.net.
