Happy Quintiversary!
We, at The Quint, are super excited to announce that we’ve had a phenomenal year filled with firsts. It’s time to beat our chests as we’ve taken storytelling and reportage to a whole new level with a smooth blend of video, audio, graphics and text.
Our team diligently works to offer a modern and sharp take on topics ranging from politics, policy and entertainment to sports, business, food and everything else under the sun.
Over the past one year, the one thing we’ve realised is that while content maybe King, relevance is Queen and we plan on being the master of both!
What is this Quintiversary?
16 March 2015 was our first full day of publishing on thequint.com and our Quintiversary commemorates that glorious day (this is what our founders, Raghav Bahl and Ritu Kapur, had to say on our launch).
Yes, we did take our first publishing step on Facebook and we’ve been ‘social’ ever since. But launching a website is another feeling altogether and that’s why 16 March is so special to us. Now we have two launch days but you won’t hear us complaining, after all, two birthdays are better than one, right?
Our first love has been videos (we launched with one!) and that’s why we’ve been at them. We have been putting out munchable capsule news videos day after day, since the very first day. We were also up to no good when we decided to pursue our other love - satire. From a sexy Sakshi Maharaj’s ‘chaar bachche yojana’ video to a guide to marrying the girl of your dreams for free on Valentine’s Day, our tongues tend to be firmly in our cheeks.
We crawled, skipped the walking bit and learnt how to run, and the numbers say it all. Our Facebook fan following is at 3.7 million, having pioneered publishing concepts like Instant Articles, and Twitter love is currently at 96k followers. All this in one year and the party isn’t over because we plan on going to town and painting it yellow and purple!
What’s Getting People Talkin’?
The Quint’s goal is to bring you news quite literally at your fingertips. That’s why each and every story is crafted to be mobile-first. We even launched our app for Android and iOS this past year! Yay!
Visual elements are a big part of our storytelling and that’s why we heavily rely on graphics (like this one on everything you need to know about Zika virus), maps and interactive timelines.
Bihar elections turned out to be huge not just for the country but for The Quint as well. The elections were covered with selfie sticks and smartphones, a truly unique first for The Quint, making us the first digital folks to do so.
Bihar Mobile 2015 was a fantastic learning curve, definitely a first worth celebrating!
More recently, the Jat reservation riots in Haryana spurred National chess champion Anuradha Beniwal to post a plea on The Quint. The heartfelt video message, to stop violence, went viral.
Stand up videos (like this one on who’ll replace Dhoni if he retires) is our way of making you sit up and take note of the things that matter to us. It’s all about connecting the dots.
DoQs is our big step into long format videos. ‘The Wild West of Uttar Pradesh’ about the rise of the radicalised Hindu fringe groups that want to wipe ISIS in India using bows and arrows, was our first.
We’ve also been building reliable and consistent deQodeds that explain the important developments around us. From ISIS in Syria to the fall of the disputed structure in Ayodhya to even Bigg Boss, we’ve been doing a lot of explaining!
#Kanhaiya and the JNU sedition row went above and beyond simple news reportage. Direct access to leaders of the movement and the opposition led to ground-breaking insights.
The ‘Buri ladki - Rapist ki Nazar se’ poster gave us our first taste of going viral while attempting to break gender stereotypes in India.
Ok, That’s Cool. So Do You Guys Do Only News?
Nah, we do campaigns that are fun, fearless and feisty. One of our earliest campaigns #MakeOutInIndia was our way of saying let’s talk about sex, break perceptions and clean out the cobwebs of hypocrisy.
This Republic Day we started #LetterToIndia campaign. We let everyone throw bouquets and brickbats in their own way. If you were pissed off, frustrated, disgusted, happy or just had something to say, this was the perfect way to do it. And you won’t believe the kind of response we got. Everyone from Bollywood stars, politicians, social influencers, prominent voices from the film industry, theatre, educational institutions, LGBTQ rights activists, provided colour and dimension to a campaign that eventually took on a life of its own on.
We even got onto the #SayYesToWeed bandwagon, because we believe in questioning what’s status quo and in busting myths.
Show Me What Else You Got!
Okay, so we are extremely proud to tell you that we are the first fully digital platform with whom Facebook partnered with to launch Instant Articles. We quickly saw Instant Articles lift the user-experience to a different level and it has worked to our advantage superbly. We are constantly evolving and changing our game.
The Quint also launched Quint Hindi which is at the helm of news coverage catering to its Hindi-speaking target group.
Are You Quintessentially Different?
In this exciting one year, we have experimented with content, formats, technology and different ways of engaging our readers meaningfully. We’ve broken news (and parameters) as well as our own expectations, but most importantly, we’ve broken the perception that only print or television can rule information.Ritu Kapur, CEO
Founded by media stalwarts Raghav Bahl & Ritu Kapur, The Quint is media with intelligence; it is among India’s leading digital content platforms and also among the fastest growing. The Quint is media for mobile consumption – quickly, visually and socially. A compelling combo of content, tech and distribution, it is high-value digital journalism, storytelling, and advertising at scale.
We are ‘hard news, made easy.’
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)