Quartz App – The Original News App with a Conversational Interface!
Quartz has released a news app for iOS with an original take on the same. Quartz App is unlike any other news app and resembles more like a text message conversation. An iMessage-like format with more topics connected to the next piece of news. One can just browse news like the BuzzFeed app with push notifications from the app on diverse news topics, as if with have a dialogue with a human.
The Quartz’s app is quite like the future version of an app as it also tells you what you are interested to know in a human voice with several fun GIFs, charts and lots of emojis.
The conversational format is striking but one cannot be sure about the repeat value. It does offer an interesting mashup of a messaging app and a news aggregator.
Quartz app – the New Way to Read News
Quartz’s new app offers ongoing conversation about news, with several messages, photos, links, and several interesting tidbits. These session lasts for some minutes and can be consumed during travelling or when you are at leisure.
Since it is written by humans who want to keep you informed as well as entertained, it does offer a great way of personal interaction.
Some of the features are new and fun too:
- Notifications and alerts can be configured and the app does not buzz your phone unless the news in question is extremely important
- View interesting charts in real time about some statistics related to a geographic area or a trend.
- Apple Watch owners can read news bits posting an emoji on the watch face.
- If there are no more news to be consumed, brace yourself for a quiz or some other challenge.
It functions through an interminable iMessage screed, Quartz App sends a flurry of one sentence messages and animated GIFs with engaging content about earnings reports, or global diamond industry or even a new musical album.
Bold, Progressive Content with Interminable Messaging
Yesterday, Quartz—the digital-only business publication with a penchant for bold, progressive design moves—unveiled its first news app, also called Quartz. The news-talking chatbot is designed with a iMessage window thus driving conversational UI for news updates.
The process goes like this:
- Quartz App sends messages about new stories in the garb of text messages
- Reply with pre-canned texts and emojis along with bells and whistles
- Toggle frequency of alerts and notifications
- Select pre-determined responses as the app keeps prodding and pestering
Some will admire the chutzpah offered by this news app. With several news aggregators on board, chances are that Quartz wanted to do something different and they have managed it. Using a conversational interface with an attention span, It is not a very new idea but seriously speaking, it makes news conversational and fun. With the initial limitations, news topics and some late updates but it stands out from others. It needs some personalized tweaks to get up and running after which it should be fine for many.
The Quartz app is sponsored and although it is difficult to monetize, the app is using subtle advertising and Mini is the initial launch partner. Messaging is a strong medium for publishers and although it is not so clear how the app is going to proceed, it is certainly a big step to help the future of messaging to become a news medium. Although it is phase one, it can certainly inspire a legion of similar apps that will try to rope in news in the form of conversations, giving out details only after you are interested.
Keval Padia is the founder & CEO of Nimblechapps, a fast-growing mobile app development company. The current innovation and updates of the field lures him to express his views and thoughts on certain topics.