Quartz aims for a digital business news experience

Kevin Delaney. who is overseeing the launch of the new Atlantic business news site called Quartz, conducted an interview with Emma Gardner of The Economist about the project.

Here is an excerpt:

Why are you focusing on digital platforms like the tablet?

There are three main reasons why we’re viewing mobile and tablet as primary platforms. One, the data is very clear that the user base for the devices is large and growing quickly. This is especially true when you look across the world, and we have visions to build real global leadership.

Secondly, we’re hoping to build a service and news product for global business leaders, and one of the defining attributes of these global leaders is that they are incredibly mobile. So the decision to design a news site for mobile as the primary platform really maps to usage patterns.

Lastly, there are tremendous opportunities for innovation on mobile and tablet platforms. In terms of the user interface, we’re really at the beginning of the road for user interfaces for news consumption. We think there are opportunities to advance on that to some degree.

So we will have a desktop website from the beginning, but we’re thinking of tablet and mobile as primary platforms. We’re reversing what people and publishers have traditionally done.

Read more here.