The new Quartz app delivers the news with the help of the community it covers, complementing Quartz’s journalism at qz.com and across its email newsletters, bots, and existing chat app. The other new product is Quartz membership, an exclusive paid offering for readers seeking news and information that will give them an edge in their business, careers, and investing. This expansion comes, say the publishers, three months after Quartz was acquired by Japanese business intelligence and media company Uzabase.
The new Quartz app delivers original news and analysis from Quartz journalists and curated news on the world’s most important developments, in tandem with opinion and insight on the news from the community on the app. At launch, the app will also feature commentary and selections from the Quartz Pros, a selection of business and thought leaders, including Richard Branson, Ian Bremmer, Joe Lubin, Sallie Krawcheck, Kai-Fu Lee, Dawn Airey, Reshma Saujani, and Adam Grant.
“Over Quartz’s first six years, we’ve served a community of business people obsessed with the global forces reshaping our work and our lives,” said Kevin J. Delaney, Quartz editor in chief and co-CEO. “The new membership and platform products will deepen the journalism we’re providing to users, and provide a way for them to continuously engage around the news with us, the Quartz Pros, and each other.”
The Quartz app’s design puts the conversation about the news at the centre of the experience, with Quartz’s editors curating the most notable and discussion-worthy news stories for the Quartz community. The app is built on earlier efforts of NewsPicks USA and draws on Uzabase’s experience with creating a community of users around the news in Japan. According to Quartz, the app features elegant, unintrusive natively integrated advertising. The Quartz app’s launch is supported by founding sponsors Deloitte and Prudential Financial, Inc.
The other new feature is Quartz membership, created to help readers make more informed decisions for their businesses, in their investments, and in their lives. The Quartz membership includes a weekly education on the changing global economy that will take Quartz members outside of the news cycle to provide analysis, context, and exclusive first-hand insight about one of the players or phenomena that’s upending global markets and rewriting the rules of business. It’s an education designed to deepen the expertise of leaders, and help those aspiring to leadership get ahead in their careers without stepping out of them. Members will have exclusive access to this premium content on both qz.com and the Quartz app as well as events and conference calls with Quartz journalists. Memberships are $14.99 per month, or $99.99 per year for founding members.
“I often describe the tone and user experience of our work as speaking the ‘native language’ of the new generation of global business leaders we serve. This expansion allows Quartz to double down on two other elements that attract this community: the need to discover useful news, and the need to better understand the implications of that news,” said Jay Lauf, Quartz publisher and co-CEO.
In July, Uzabase acquired Quartz from Atlantic Media. Uzabase’s portfolio is designed to inform the next generation of business leaders with its core products, SPEEDA and NewsPicks Japan, which serve a predominantly East Asian audience with data on enterprises, insights from a user’s network, and global news.
