Why NewsPicks bought Quartz: Original content

Satoshi Ebitani of LinkedIn interviewed Uzabase CEO and NewsPicks chairman Yusuke Umeda about its acquisition of financial news site Quartz.

Here is an excerpt:

Did you recently acquire Quartz to fill in a missing component, namely media for and from the US?

Umeda: Yes. We had already started building a platform and a community, but we lacked the final component: original content creation. It was a vital piece of the puzzle, and the key to making the premium model work. We acquired Quartz in order to fit it into that role.

I suspect that the actual content we create for the US will end up being different from the content we make in Japan. But we have not settled that yet. Trial and error will be important, and we want ascend the learning curve rapidly. The editorial structure will be mostly up to the people at Quartz. Quartz editor-in-chief Kevin Delaney will supervise, as Norihiko Sasaki did for our Japanese media creation component. They also have editorial independence. We will consult with them on improvements to the business model, of course, but Kevin will be the one deciding what sort of content to create for the premium service.

Read more here.