Quartz shoots for tablet and mobile, not app, readers

Peter Kafka of All Things Digital writes that the new business news site Quartz, which is launching today, is targeting mobile and table readers, but does not have an application.

Kafka writes, “In English: Instead of asking readers to download an app to get its stuff on tablets or phones, Quartz will work on the mobile Web browsers those machines already have. And it will publish a single Web site, which will configure itself depending on the kind of device and screen size each reader uses.

“Duh. Right?

“Except that just two years ago, the entire publishing world was consumed with the iPad, and tablets in general, and the notion that device-specific apps would allow them to break free of the tyranny of the free Web’s economics. Instead of giving away their stuff online, publishers argued/hoped, they could sell discrete bundles of programming and content via Apple, and hopefully Google and other platforms.

“But, both publicly  and privately, many publishers now concede that they’ve been underwhelmed with apps. The road for brand-new titles launched as apps has been even rockier. So the Quartz staff say they decided early on that they would give away their content, and they would do it on the Web.

“‘It seems very clear that the Web is far more suited for sharing of news and articles, and we want everybody to access our stuff,’ says senior editor Zachary Seward. ‘It sounds sort of silly to say this, but anyone can navigate directly to any of our stories. You can’t do that in the app store world.'”

Read more here.