Quartz is a new kind of business news venture. This is our home for updates about product development, design, engineering, and life at Quartz. Email us at hi@qz.com.
Announcing Quartz Index, a new way of measuring the global economy
Today, Quartz launches Quartz Index, an interactive tool providing readers with a view of some of the biggest drivers of change in the global economy.
Quartz readers are excited by change. As industries have become increasingly intertwined and the global order no longer determined by its traditional centers of gravity, there has emerged a need for a new, dynamic way of watching the world change. We’ve designed Quartz Index to complement traditional economic measures—GDP, PMI, exchange rates, and the like—with indicators that together tell the story of not just which direction the economy is headed, but how it’s getting there.
Quartz Index is a collection of eight numerical indicators, from drone registrations and SpaceX launches to Hong Kong retail sales and retirement fund investment decisions. These indicators will be updated regularly on the Quartz Index homepage. Quartz’s editorial team will also provide regular coverage of topics related to each indicator in accompanying stories on qz.com and a weekly email roundup of key changes.
“The Quartz Index tries to go beyond what’s up and what’s down to show you how the economy is changing in fundamental ways,” said Kevin Delaney, editor in chief of Quartz.
iShares by BlackRock is the exclusive launch sponsor for Quartz Index. “As the global leader in index products and ETFs, it makes sense for iShares to partner with Quartz on this project,” said Jason Hill, global head of media for BlackRock. “We felt that the ability to use this editorial feature to raise awareness on indexing and explain complex topics through data visualization, interactive units, and all-around excellent content would help us reach our target audience in a compelling new way.”
Quartz’s journalism recognized by SABEW Best in Business awards
We’re thrilled that Quartz has won general excellence in the 2016 Society of American Business Editors and Writers’ Best in Business Awards. Better yet, it’s our third year in a row winning that category. We also won for best digital feature and were finalists for two other awards.
Quartz was named the winner in the following categories:
For the general excellence award, the judges wrote, “Quartz’s entry, across all its formats, showed an impressive depth of reporting and originality. Quartz finds creative ways to explain complex ideas without over-simplifying them.”
Jay Lauf and Kevin Delaney, co-presidents of Quartz, just sent this memo to our staff, and we wanted to share it with our readers, as well. As always, thanks for your support getting us to these big new milestones!
Fellow Quartzians,
As we close out the third quarter and mark our third anniversary, we wanted to commend everyone on the achievement of three (see a pattern?) particularly important numerical markers.
Many other impressive stats were outlined in a thank you post to readers last week, but in closing the books on September, these numbers jumped out at us: 16,000,000, 42, and 21.
The first represents a new traffic record for qz.com, which attracted 16 million unique visitors in September. That extraordinary growth, every last bit of it organic, is the result of both hard and smart work by our writers and editors. It also continues the consistent pattern of growth for Quartz: New heights introduce us to new readers, which resets the traffic floor at a higher foundation, and we keep going from there. This matters deeply on two levels: The larger audience means our journalism can have greater impact, and it also means we can achieve our business goals.
We are setting new records on the commercial side, as well. Revenue year-to-date is up 80% over last year. More than 120 blue chip brands are now advertising with Quartz, and 90% of them renew their business with us. Advertisers are not just trying Quartz, they are making us an integral part of their marketing efforts.
But the other two really interesting numbers we wanted to highlight relate to achievements in mobile and in international sales. We read again and again about other publishers struggling to generate revenue through their mobile offerings even as readers increasingly migrate to those devices. Not so for us. Quartz now generates 42% of our total ad revenue from readers on mobile devices, which makes us a standout in the publishing world. This is a huge indicator of future success.
Lastly, kudos to our international sales and marketing teams, who have continued to capitalize on the large audiences we’re attracting around the world. Most US-based publishers we talk to are struggling to generate significant revenue from their international traffic, but at Quartz, 21% of our total revenue comes from our operations outside the US, and that number is growing. It looks like as much as 28% of our Q4 revenue will come from markets outside the US.
So as we turn three years old, remember those numbers: 16,000,000, 42, and 21. They are indicators of a very solid foundation for continued growth. As we find ourselves saying over and over again, we’re proud of this entire team and hope you are just as proud of all that we’re accomplishing together!
Jay + Kevin
Quartz wins two Online Journalism Awards
It was an LA awards show just as glamorous as the Oscars, if not as ritzy. At the Online News Association’s annual conference in Los Angeles last week, we came away with two of the most prestigious honors in digital journalism.
Quartz won Online Journalism Awards in our size category for general excellence and for excellence and innovation in visual digital storytelling. The first award was for all of our work, and the judges said, “Few sites set the standard for web work like this one.” The second was for a series of stories (here, here, and here) on the burgeoning space business, by David Yanofsky, Tim Fernholz, Sam Williams, and Nikhil Sonnad.
To mark the honors, we received two swords/awards, sometimes referred to as “nerd knives,” which TSA thankfully let us bring back to New York.
Emily Passer and David Yanofsky celebrating with a sharp object.
We are thrilled to introduce a whole new way to read Quartz: within Apple’s News app, which is launching today in the United States.
The News app is available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. After downloading iOS 9, the app will automatically appear on your homescreen. Inside, you can follow topics and sources for a personalized reading experience. Quartz is among the first news organizations to publish directly into the app, and nearly everything you love to read on our website can also be read natively in News.
This is an exciting new home for us. iPhones and iPads are already the most popular devices for reading Quartz, and the News app should lead to more people seeing more of our stories. We’ve spent a lot of time making sure that everything looks beautiful and is easy to read. The app itself is a breeze to use and filled with lots of great journalism by Quartz and other sources.
Qualcomm will be the first sponsor featured in Quartz’s channel, with beautiful ads that live natively in the app. Other advertisers will also be featured in the coming weeks.
“For Qualcomm’s first brand campaign, we skipped right to the newest and most inventive opportunities out there, offering Qualcomm maximum brand impact and exposure,” says Daniele Kohen, managing director for Neo@Ogilvy, Los Angeles. “Quartz has consistently been one of the more innovative partners to work with and so it makes sense to run with them in the launch of Apple News, which has the potential to be a great new way to engage with Qualcomm’s core audience.”
Apple News is our latest extension beyond qz.com, part of a strategy we discussed at length earlier this year. We want to reach you wherever you are, in whatever form you prefer to read us. As apps like News become popular, we will be there.
“With so much of our traffic coming through mobile devices and with the massive install-base Apple News will have from the start, it makes perfect sense for Quartz to be a part of this offering,” said Jay Lauf, publisher and co-president of Quartz. “And in this instance, the chance to involve our advertising partners is much clearer and more interesting than it has been in the early stages of other such experiments.”
Say hello to Atlas! It’s our new home for charts and data: http://atlas.qz.com
Hello, Africa.
We just sent out the following press release, announcing that Quartz Africa will launch in June. In the meantime, sign up here to receive updates and follow @qzafrica on Twitter for our ongoing coverage of the continent.
Quartz Africa to launch in June 2015
The digital global business publication expands its coverage of Africa with regional content and targeted native ads
March 11, 2015—Quartz, Atlantic Media’s digital global business news brand, will launch Quartz Africa this June with region-specific content and targeted native ads. Quartz, with founding partner GE, plans to provide both global and Africa-specific business news coverage to readers of the Quartz Africa site.
More than 40% of Quartz’s readers are from outside the US and in just over two years, the site has attracted more than 100,000 monthly unique users from Africa. Following its successful launch in June 2014, Quartz India has expanded to reach more than 1.3 million readers monthly, growing more than 500% in just eight months.
The rise of the African consumer economy is one of the biggest, and most under-covered, stories that are critical for business readers. By 2020, seven of the world’s top 10 fastest growing economies will be in sub-Saharan Africa. The continent already has more mobile subscribers than the US or the EU.
“As a global business publication, we have an editorial imperative to cover the most interesting and important developments in the global economy,” says Jay Lauf, Quartz co-president and publisher. “As a digital and mobile-first publication, Quartz has great commercial potential in Africa.”
Yinka Adegoke has joined Quartz to be its Africa editor. Adegoke previously held senior positions at Reuters and Billboard and has written for publications including The Guardian and The Financial Times. Born in London and raised in Nigeria, Adegoke will lead the Quartz Africa team, consisting of journalists, freelancers, and contributors from across the continent.
Modeled after the Quartz India experience, Quartz Africa will be automatically viewable to readers in Africa via qz.com, and its content will be available to readers outside the region through the Quartz Africa view via qz.com/africa.
“It’s a truly thrilling time to cover the continent with the youngest demographics and several of the world’s fastest-growing economies,” said Adegoke. “Those dynamics are just beginning to unleash pent-up creativity, and are driving innovation and attracting smart investors from around the globe.”
GE, Quartz Africa’s premier founding partner, is known for having a focus on innovative native ad formats, media programs and content marketing as well as a commitment to partnering with Africa to deliver outcomes around infrastructure, technology and skill development.
“We’ve seen great engagement and attention with our Quartz India partnership and we are excited to partner with Quartz as they expand to Africa,” said Jason Hill, GE’s director of global media strategy. “We will be using Quartz’s innovative platform and content tools to tell stories around GE innovations, technology, and partnerships within this vastly growing market. We have a particular commitment to localization and skills training in Africa and believe these topics are rife for exploration via great content and the great editorial that has become a hallmark of Quartz.”
Quartz, launched in 2012, covers global business topics rooted in a set of defining coverage obsessions. The site is focused on the new global economy and geared toward business leaders and senior decision makers across a range of industries and markets. Quartz has more than 10 million unique visitors monthly and more than 40 journalists around the world who produce quality content 24/7. Its content is optimized for access on tablets and mobile devices.
More information on the launch of Quartz Africa will be provided in the coming months. Sign up here to receive updates. You can follow Quartz Africa on Twitter at @qzafrica.
###
For more information and press inquiries, please contact:
Emily Passer Director of Communications Quartz 646-539-6614 epasser@qz.com
Photo credit: Reuters
Quartz is ringing the Nasdaq closing bell today
We’re approaching the second anniversary of Quartz’s launch this month. To kick things off, our team in New York will ring the closing bell at the Nasdaq stock exchange today.
We’ll be celebrating this anniversary with real confidence and hope for the future:
Quartz had 6.8 million unique visitors in August, according to Omniture, well above our own targets and more than double just a year earlier. Revenue has nearly quadrupled from last year, with over 65 advertising accounts.
We very recently launched a site redesign that has attracted broad user praise (thank you!) and our journalism has been sparking discussion and earning honors. Just a few months old, Quartz India has been publishing scoops and exceeding our readership targets. Our popularemail newsletter, the Daily Brief, is closing in on 90,000 subscribers. And we’re well into a wave of hiring that once complete will add about 20 new staff to our ranks. Managing editor Bobby Ghosh and global news editor Heather Landy are among the respected, experienced journalists who joined Quartz recently.
We remain very thankful for your readership and support. Quartz is for people who are excited by change—in business and the global economy, and how they’re covered. You have our commitment that Quartz itself will keep changing and improving as it enters its third year.
Bobby Ghosh is joining us as managing editor of Quartz, starting next month. He is currently editor of Time International, overseeing all of its editions and correspondents outside of the US.
Bobby is one of the most-experienced journalists at covering international affairs and the new global economy, having lived as a correspondent in Baghdad, London, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Washington DC. Raised in India, his assignments have taken him to much of the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, and Asia, including years spent in war zones.
Bobby brings a sophisticated curiosity about the world, an obsessive news focus, and a strong identification with Quartz’s mission to cover the new global economy’s most important and interesting facets.
He has extensive experience in managing teams of journalists, and a reputation for being the advocate of the correspondents he’s edited. (He also has an extensive collection of red socks.) Bobby will report to me and oversee our main newsroom staff. (Gideon, Mitra, and Zach will continue to report to me as well.)
Bobby’s mandate is to engage deeply with Quartz’s journalism and increase the breadth, creativity, and impact of our coverage, guiding our reporters to their greatest work. His arrival comes as we’re expanding the editorial team to produce even more high-quality journalism that finds a broad readership online. And it will allow us to further our ambitions outside the US, as marked by this week’s launch of Quartz India.
Please join me in welcoming Bobby.
Best, Kevin
Quartz is a new kind of business news venture. This is our home for updates about product development, design, engineering, and life at Quartz. Email us at hi@qz.com.
