Nieman Foundation at Harvard
On Election Day, Quartz created a Slack team to help its readers — particularly those outside the U.S. — gather and talk about the results.
Within 24 hours of Quartz posting its call to sign up, 1,554 people requested an invitation. At the channel’s peak, 1,012 people were participating.
“Quartz readership is very global and we wanted not just U.S. readers, but those outside it” to join the discussion, said Priya Ganapati, Quartz product director. There was also a Spanish-language channel; Quartz recently launched a Spanish-language edition of its daily newsletter.We've got pretty great Slack conversations going with Quartz readers around the world, in English and Spanish. https://t.co/zINyEKQQ5n
— Zach Seward (@zseward) November 8, 2016
The channel’s users were most active between 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. EST on November 8, Ganapati said, and then again after 7 pm. EST as results began coming in. The channel incorporated the Breaking News app and Quartz editors and reporters talking and posting.
What an incredible spreadsheet, cheers @dan_munz from the quartz slack channel! pic.twitter.com/o8KoJMqYfo
— Ryan Watts (@ryanleewatts) November 8, 2016
By the end of the night, as it became clear that Donald Trump was going to win the election, people began to trickle away. The Breaking News app kept going, however, spitting updates out into the morning.
