Biz site Quartz to launch in September

Ian Burrell of The Independent in London writes about Quartz, the new business news site scheduled to launch in September from The Atlantic.

Burrell writes, “Quartz, which will launch in September, is primarily aimed at tablet users and is free of charge. It will target the international business class that lives life on the move. ‘If you look at the business people operating in this new economy, they are people who are in a sense post-national,’ Justin B. Smith, president of the Atlantic Media Company told The Independent. ‘They spend more time outside their own countries, they are on aeroplanes all the time, they’re borderless and living mobile existences.’

“Other news organisations will watch Quartz as a potential model for digital news provision. The editor-in-chief is Kevin Delaney, former managing editor of the digital operation at the Wall Street Journal. He said Quartz’s ‘form-agnostic approach’ geared to tablets and mobiles would allow greater flexibility than traditional media products. ‘We are not focused on print deadlines or forms of content that are demanded by a print publication or a news wire service,’ he said. ‘We are not beholden to the standard article format that traditional media organisations have to, by necessity, devote most of their energy to.’

“The name Quartz was chosen not only to convey the idea of quality but also because it’s a disruptive mineral linked to tectonic activity, a metaphor for both the service itself and the kind of momentous economic shifts that Delaney’s team aims to identify and cover. ‘Our goal is to provide global business professionals with the most essential information at any given moment in the most efficient way.’

“The venture has a core staff of 25 headquartered in New York’s fashionable SoHo, with representatives in London and Asia.”

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