It’s the new Quartz Daily Briefing: informative, chatty and easy to get addicted to
The invitation came via an email: would you like to get a Quartz Daily Brief? Why not, said I. I already get several briefings, but there is always room for one more, and I like many of Quartz' obsessions.
Curated obsessions? How can anyone be against that?
In the era of the two-tempos for storytelling, it seems everyone wants to join in with that second tempo: the curated edition that stops you at a specific time each day to remind you of what you should and must know right that minute.
So, it is Saturday, and I am in Dubai and, presto, here comes my first Quartz Weekend Briefing, greeting me with a Good Morning (it is lunch time in Dubai, but, heck, it is good morning somewhere, so I don't mind).
This briefing is chatty, and there are no headlines to hep me index. Which may be a good thing, since what makes this one different is that I get the feeling Quartz is writing to me and me only. There are also no visuals. This is just plain text. Quick, to the point, and, in typical Quartz style: provocatively interesting.
The briefing arrives as an email, and on this day the headlines summarizes the main stories:
Quartz Weekend Brief—Twitter jihad, mobile finance, disrupting disruption, “smart dumb”
After the Good Morning, Quartz readers!, I get:
The American and French revolutions had their pamphleteers. Soviet dissidents had samizdat. Jihadists spread their message on audio and video cassettes, before switching to YouTube. Every generation’s rebels and insurgents have used the medium of the day to get their message out. So it should be no surprise that ISIL (or is it ISIS?) uses Twitter.
But as the Sunni militants continued their assault on Iraq this week, we’ve learned just how sophisticated they are
Then, talk about curation:
Five things on Quartz we especially liked
Of the 5, this one interested me:
Starbucks is more marketer than benefactor.
Then, Five things elsewhere that made us smarter
That peeked my interest. Who does not want to be made smarter?
Of these, I liked:
Are carbs that bad?,
I admit that Disrupting “disruption,” had something catchy about it.
That was it, folks. After that, wishes for a good weekend, as in:
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, disruptive ideas, and dumb ideas to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day.
And in today’s edition of the Quartz Daily Brief
It is Tuesday, July 1, and here are some of the headlines that grabbed me in today's Quartz' Brief
The euro zone cooled and the UK sizzled.
In other segments of the Brief, and headlines that are tempting:
Quartz obsession interlude
Leo Mirani goes inside the strange world of auctions for internet domain names. “The man with paddle number 68 wasn’t shy about it. He wanted an adult website, and he wasn’t going to let a few hundred dollars stand in his way.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
If Facebook was a country, it would be a dictatorship. That means it’s time for its users to hold it accountable.
Surprising discoveries
99% of the plastic in our oceans is missing. Sea creatures may be eating it—and that would mean we are too.
The most effective form of birth control is the kind Americans don’t use. The IUD has a perception problem.
Ukraine wants its military dolphins back. They’ve been under Russia’s control since the Crimea takeover, but Ukraine is demanding their return.
BlackBerry has a future, at least according to investors who have been bidding up its stock.