The Quartz Brief app is being shut down

Quartz Brief, the award-winning news mobile app, is being put out to pasture so the digital news publisher can focus more on a newer one launched in the fall, reports Max Willens of Digiday.

Willens reports, “Digiday has learned that Quartz plans to shut down the Quartz Brief, the chatbot-style mobile app launched to great acclaim in 2016. The app will shut down July 1. Adam Pasick, who headed up editorial operations for the app, as well as the Quartz Daily Brief, one of Quartz’s flagship newsletters, left for a job at The New York Times in May. A spokesperson said Pasick’s departure had no bearing on the decision to shut down the app.

“The Brief, which earned the adoration of media watchers but never managed to grow a large-scale audience, is being shut down at a moment when Quartz is devoting more resources to driving consumer revenues; Quartz launched a membership product in November, which costs $14.99 per month or $150 per year, as well as a new mobile app modeled after NewsPicks, the mobile news app owned by Uzabase, the Japanese firm that acquired Quartz in July.”

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