Covering the world of business, online only

David Carr of the New York Times writes Monday about how The Atlantic’s new business site Quartz aims to change how business news is delivered.

Carr writes, “Quartz is the company’s effort to take advantage of a changed environment, not just in publishing, but in the world at large. The editorial product is aimed at the front half of airplanes that crisscross from Zurich to São Paulo to Singapore, serving executives who are increasingly having similar conversations no matter where they land. It was built for tablets, conceived as a mobile product for mobile people.

“‘This is a global audience, one that is growing very rapidly,’ Mr. Smith said. ‘When you walk through a busy Asian airport, nobody is talking about or thinking about the American economy. The world has gotten much bigger than that.’

“Quartz is staffed by 20 journalists, including Kevin Delaney, its editor in chief, who was managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Online, and Gideon Lichfield, global news editor, who was deputy digital editor and media editor at The Economist. Of course, Quartz won’t have the financial data resources of Dow Jones, Reuters or Bloomberg, but Mr. Delaney suggested that data is ubiquitous while real insight on the news is a rare commodity.

“‘Any good blog or magazine has defining obsessions, and we’ll structure around the ones that we think smart, globally minded people will be interested in,’ he said.”

Read more here.