Where will the revenue come from with Quartz?

Jeff John Roberts of PaidContent.org writes about the launch of business news site Quartz, but wonders how it will generate enough revenue to sustain itself.

Roberts writes, “At the same time, Poynter cites a Ken Doctor report that explains that Quartz will offer a form of sponsored stories known as ‘deep content ads.’ The idea here is to create ads that seem native to the publication — a scheme executed very well by Buzzfeed, another successful media pioneer.

“But will ads bring in enough money to pay for all that elite content? Probably not. Few publications, elite or otherwise, can live on advertising alone these days. That’s why the analyst, Doctor, seems on the money with his prediction that the Atlantic will offer a professional subscription product like Politico Pro. In other words, one for another, the Atlantic will eventually target reader revenue.

“With Quartz, Atlantic appears to be making smart tactical choices in pursuit of a viable medium term strategy. And, as David Carr reports in the New York Times, its backers have already tasted success with other digital endeavors like Atlantic Wire and the Atlantic Cities.

“The Atlantic’s new business gambit is worth watching closely. Equally interesting will be how the other members of  the ‘elite’ fraternity react. Will they lower prices to stave off Quartz’s arrival or double-down on the ‘high quality for a high price’ digital model that has worked so far?”

Read more here.