BtoB Media Business - September 2012 - (Page 6)

Upfront Atlantic Media’s Quartz aims to rock business journalism dience of 10 million to 15 million. Atlantic Media is looking to disrupt the Meanwhile, the journalistic quality of global business media market with its new Quartz is expected to be on par with other brand Quartz (www.qz.com), which will be top business sites. Smith brought in Kevin launched later this month or early next month. Delaney, a former managing editor of the “We want Quartz to be an innovator from Wall Street Journal Online, as editor in chief. the product side to the monetization side,” “The core and majority of our content will said Justin Smith, Atlantic Media president. be original, but we are very interested in the “We want to disrupt the marketplace on open Web and aggregation,” Smith said. “We the product front with a different and unusu- are also building a large body of commentary.” al tablet-first user interface. On the commerSocial networks will play a key role, too. cial front, we’re looking to disrupt through “Social distribution has been at the center of nonstandard ad units, customization of ad the traffic growth strategy of TheAtlantic.com creative to the mobile platform by our own and represents a similar opportunity for developers, branded conQuartz,” he added. tent and event solutions.” To optimize the mobile While the Quartz user experience for advertisers, interface is under wraps Quartz will offer a suite of until its debut, Smith said nonstandard ad units, it has been built in Smith said. “All of our ad HTML5, making it browsunits at the outset are goer-based and viewable on ing to be full-screen, with any mobile device. Users beautiful creative that will be able to bookmark harkens back to the magathe app to their mobile zine advertising experiscreens for an experience ence,” he said. “We have similar to apps designed developers on our ad sales Justin Smith, president, Atlantic Media exclusively for operating team who are customizing systems from Apple (iOS), Google (Android) [the ads] for our platform.” and others. Quartz will also employ responThrough the end of the year, Quartz will sive design so that the format will adapt au- have only four sponsors. “That was our plan tomatically to the size of the viewer’s screen. and we sold out,” Smith said. Starting in With an advertising-supported business early 2013, Quartz will open up to more admodel, Quartz will not put what Smith calls vertisers and move to an impression-based “the friction of a paywall” between its con- advertising monetization model. tent and the audience. That differentiates Quartz will also have sponsored content. Quartz from the Financial Times and The “Branded content is something we’re doing Economist, which have digital subscription very successfully on TheAtlantic.com,” models and serve the audience of C-suite Smith said. Also following in the footsteps and senior-level global business profession- of The Atlantic and the company’s Nationals that Quartz is also targeting. Smith esti- al Journal, Quartz will produce thoughtmated Quartz could ultimately reach an au- leadership events under the Quartz Live brand. BY MARIE GRIFFIN IN BRIEF Times Co. agrees to sell About Group to IAC The New York Times Co. has agreed to sell its About Group, which includes About.com, to Barry Diller’s IAC/Interactivecorp for $300 million in cash. Times Co. acquired About.com, a website with more than 900 “topic sites,” for $410 million in 2005. IAC’s purchase price topped the $270 million offered by Answers.com, a website backed by private equity companies Summit Partners and TA Associates. “This sale will allow the Times Co. to focus on the development and growth of our core brands locally, nationally and on a global scale,” said Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of Times Co., in a news release. In May, Times Co. sold its remaining stake in Fenway Sports Group, owner of the Boston Red Sox. In January, it sold 16 regional newspapers to Halifax Media Holdings for $143 million. “We want to disrupt the marketplace on the product front with a different and unusual tablet-first user interface.” Gannett acquires social media company Blinq Gannett Co., publisher of USA Today, has acquired social marketing company Blinq Media. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Since 2008 Blinq has specialized in creating Facebook ad campaigns. “With demand for social media marketing solutions continuing to grow at a rapid pace, this acquisition is part of our ongoing transformation at Gannett and positions us to be a leader in both local and global social media marketing,” said Gracia Martore, president-CEO of Gannett Co., in a statement. “Blinq will enhance Gannett Digital Marketing Services’ ability to deliver a one-stop shop for all marketing needs, including social marketing.” AGENDA SEPT. 20 OCT. 22–23 NOV. 5–6 NOV. 14 ‘BtoB’s’ Top Digital Marketer Awards BtoB Julia Morgan Ballroom, San Francisco www.btobonline.com ABM Executive Forum American Business Media Trump International Hotel & Tower, Chicago www.americanbusiness media.com Pearl Awards Custom Content Council Liberty Theatre, New York www.customcontent council.com ‘BtoB’s’ Best Awards BtoB Edison Ballroom, New York www.btobonline.com 6 | Media Business | September 2012 | mediabusinessonline.com http://www.About.com http://www.qz.com http://www.About.com http://www.Answers.com http://www.TheAtlantic.com http://www.TheAtlantic.com http://www.btobonline.com http://www.americanbusinessmedia.com http://www.customcontentcouncil.com http://www.btobonline.com http://www.americanbusinessmedia.com http://www.customcontentcouncil.com http://www.mediabusinessonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BtoB Media Business - September 2012

BtoB Media Business - September 2012
Table of Contents
Upfront
Cover Story
Budgeting for 2013
Sales & Marketing
M&A
Production
People
Benchmarks
Endnote

BtoB Media Business - September 2012