Going Digital: Editor Josh Quittner Leaves Time Inc For Flipboard

Erick Schonfeld

Erick Schonfeld is a technology journalist and the executive producer of DEMO. He is also a partner at bMuse, a product incubator in New York City. Schonfeld is the former Editor in Chief of TechCrunch. At TechCrunch, he oversaw the editorial content of the site, helped to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produced TCTV shows, and wrote daily... → Learn More

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

This should be interesting. Flipboard is getting an editorial director from the world of print magazines: Josh Quittner, my former boss at Business 2.0 magazine and most recently the editor at Time Inc. behind many of its digital magazine initiatives. (Quittner is the one on the right in this picture from our B2.0 days, with Om Malik and me in the background).

I’ve been telling Josh for years that he should leave print behind and dive headfirst into digital, and I’m glad to see him finally taking my advice. When Josh talks about what a digital magazine should be, Flipboard is actually the first thing that comes to mind. He’s been toying with the idea of creating a purely digital magazine for the iPad, and it will be interesting to see if any of those ideas make it into Flipboard. Last time I spoke with Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, he had just come from a meeting at Time Inc. and he was taking just like Josh, saying, “people like to see their content atomized,” a Quittnerism I was familiar with.

Part of Flipboard’s strategy is to partner with print publications and bring them onto the Flipboard platform. Quittner’s task will be to help bridge those two worlds, which is what he’s been doing inside Time Inc since the days of Pathfinder anyway. “My job will be working with publishers to create amazing editorial experiences on Flipboard.” he says. “I’ll also be helping to add the editorial bit to the product itself as it evolves.”

Welcome to the dark side, Josh.

Photo credit: Laughing Squid (Scott Beale)

Person: Josh Quittner
Companies:

Josh Quittner is the editorial director of [Flipboard], where he helps publishers take advantage of the platform. Quittner was the managing editor of Time, Inc.’s magazine Business 2.0 from 2002 until September, 2007, after which the magazine ceased publication. After Business 2.0, Quittner served as executive editor of Fortune Magazine until April 2008, when he rejoined Time as an editor-at-large. He also served as Director of Digital Editorial Development, News, Sports and Business at Time Inc., where he helped...

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Company: Flipboard
Website: flipboard.com
Launch Date: December 2010
Funding: $60.5M

Flipboard is a digital social magazine that aggregates web links from your social circle, i.e. Twitter and Facebook, and displays the content in magazine form on an iPad.

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Photo credit: Laughing Squid (Scott Beale)