Quartz seeks wider audience as competition stiffens

Quartz came early to the explanatory journalism party.

Since launching 20 months ago, the news site (Qz.com) has chipped away toward relevance with a steady, if not voluminous, stream of posts about the global economy seen through the prism of reporters' topical "obsessions."

Its quiet beginning, utilizing free-to-use WordPress software, wasn't accompanied by the hoopla of its subsequent competitors. But some of its early practices — emphasis on data and charts to augment stories, e-mailed newsletters and designing stories optimal for social media shares and mobile reading — have inspired other wordsmith entrepreneurs who followed Quartz into the suddenly crowded market for data-driven explanatory news. "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," says Quartz publisher Jay Lauf.

Traffic and revenue for the site, owned by Atlantic Media, have been trending in the right direction. The site has about 4.7 million unique visitors per month, Lauf says, citing Omniture figures. About a year ago, it had about 2 million. Lauf declines to discuss finances in detail but says Quartz's revenue for the first half of this year is 400% higher than a year before.

Still, the site has yet to generate a profit, according to Lauf. And its early-mover advantages have been muted by competition that's only getting stiffer. To varying degrees, Quartz's new rivals — including FiveThirtyEight.com, headed by stats wizard Nate Silver; The New York Times' The Upshot; and Vox.com, led by former Washington Post policy blogger Ezra Klein — are after the same group of readers: sophisticated, high-earning, jet-setting news lovers.

"Digital publishing is a challenge for anybody," Lauf says, "We feel like we're tackling those challenges."

Quartz's challenges include amassing more stories, as well as more readers and advertisers (it has about 60 of the latter). The site doesn't post enough content to sustain a long-term business, says Ken Doctor, a news industry analyst who writes the blog Newsonomics.com and has written about Quartz'sevolution.

"They've got to scale up," he says. "If you're going to bid for a serious business audience, the product has to be substantial enough."

Quartz's recent business decisions acknowledge the problem. It plans to add about 30 more positions — about half in editorial — augmenting the current roster of 50. And it's stepping up efforts to diversify revenue sources.

In early June, Quartz launched an edition aimed at India, part of an effort to target new audiences and attract advertising from multinational corporations. For now, it will feature feature stories by a staff of journalists in India who are managed by a third-party partner, Scroll.In. Prior to the launch, India was among the top traffic originators for Qz.com, Lauf says.

From the start, sponsored events have been part of the game plan. Advertising and corporate sponsorship at its conferences and meetings generate about 10% of Quartz's total revenue. Its first paid-admission conference — a global population themed show called "The Next Billion" in June — was sold out. Quartz plans six more events this year.

Positioning itself as something of a more succinct, digital version of The Economist, Quartz has steered clear of cheap banner ads in favor of large display advertising and sponsored content, advertiser-written posts displayed alongside Quartz content.

The strategy has helped Quartz keep its ad pricing above that of some click-conscious competitors. Doctor estimates Quartz is selling native ads at about $75 per thousand views. That's "incredible for a less than 2-year-old start-up," he says.

Chasing obsessions

Quartz's distinctive editorial approach — which stems in part from having to do more with a thin roster of reporters — marked its early identity and continues to be a pitch point for the ad sales department.

With a few exceptions, stories are kept short, typically 300 to 600 words. There's not "a lot of throat-clearing," says Quartz Editor Kevin Delaney.

Jeremy Littau, a journalism professor who teaches digital media at Lehigh University and considers Quartz one of his morning must reads, says the site's competitive edge is its exploration of "so many spokes that shoot out of" business news.

"They keep focus around business but are not afraid to come at it from a non-business angle," he says.

While it's quick to parse on Janet Yellen's musings, Quartz also likens New Zealand's economic momentum to that of the country's rugby team.

Another story featured Bloomberg's attempt to merge its data terminal with the virtual-reality headset Oculus Rift to create a futuristic trading desk.

"What we aim for is a voice that's smart but doesn't take itself too seriously," Delaney says.

Delaney has steered clear of the common newsroom practice of assigning reporters to formal beats. Quartz writers are encouraged to pursue their "obsessions" as long as they can be tied, however loosely, to international economics.

Some obsessions — the World Cup, the Indian election, the Twitter IPO — come and go. Others, like one staffer's interest in the sea, are more enduring, resulting in thematic posts on such topics as the dwindling population of Manta rays and Japan's whale-hunting practices.

With obsession as the main editorial frame, Delaney pushes reporters to avoid quotidian news analysis in favor of undiscovered angles and fresh takes. "Obsession is one way to identify important macro issues," Delaney says.

As an example, Delaney cites a Quartz's post about the iPhone 5 release, filed after one of his reporters noticed an unlabeled chart Apple CEO Tim Cook used in his presentation to demonstrate sales growth. The reporter, David Yanofsky, dug up quarterly sales figures and wrote a post — The Chart Tim Cook doesn't want you to see — that showed iPhone sales growth has actually slowed.

Still, at its core, Quartz is a blog, with many of its posts originating at other news sources. "But they're diving into the source and synthesizing into something greater," Littau says. "They're putting their unique stamp on it. It never feels like clickbait."

Says Delaney: "I tell people that they need to be bold and creative in coverage. Chasing a volume of low-quality and low-impact stories is not the game we're in."

As part of its long game, Quartz has been publishing more narrative-driven — and longer — stories that aren't necessarily good for online traffic but have a longer shelf-life among digital journalism mavens. A 2013 Quartzstory about a mysterious lithium-ion battery maker clocked in at more than 7,000 words.

Doctor wonders how long Quartz's loose, obsession-based editorial structure can last. As it becomes larger in scope and staffing, Quartz's editorial product differentiation and specialties will become crucial in branding, he says. "I find obsessions confusing," he says. "I don't think I can say, as a reader, 'These are three things I go to them for.'"

Quartz may already be dabbling in specialization. It recently launched Glass, an aggregated blog focusing on "the future of TV."

"We want to be short, fast and creative. And we want to do longer, ambitious stories (that have) higher impact," Delaney says. "We don't want to do stuff in between."