Online stories should be experienced, not just browsed
Enter Quirky Byte, a network of the Fans, by the Fans and for the Fans, feeding insightful utility driven articles to the youth of India. QuirkyByte is quirky, trendy, insightful and focuses on the young Indian market. It is an online magazine providing trending and informative articles on topics ranging from health, Hollywood, food, sports, entertainment and much more – inked to forge a connect with the Gen Y in the country.
The conception of QuirkyByte is as interesting as the portal itself. Aditya Goel, the founder of the online magazine, conceived the idea for setting up QuirkyBytewhile he was convalescing in the hospital for 2 years. As he had spare time on hands, he spent lot of time reading articles across social media and wasn’t very pleased with the quality of content in circulation, thus conceiving the idea of utility blogging. While most networks fall for the trap of click-baits and stoop to poor quality content, this is where the differentiation for QuirkyByte lies. “QuirkyByte is driven to add value to the lives of our consumers. It is based on the concept of marginal utility, where we treat each article as a product driving utility towards the end user. If the article doesn’t have any utility for them, it’s vague and will never be seen on QuirkyByte,” says Aditya Goel, Founder and CEO while explaining the concept behind the portal.
QuirkyByte has managed to carve a niche, despite stiff competition, by staying away from misleading articles with little or no insight. The company understands that the demand for quality driven content will only increase in the future, and users are continually getting wary of poor content doing rounds on the Internet. “We are in a different league than most online magazines and see only opportunity in competition. We will always have a sense of quality consciousness and provide interactive utility-content through articles, videos, infographics etc. to our readers. Unsurprisingly, we have achieved a regional Alexa rank of 2200 in India and a Global rank of 30k in 1 year,” reveals Aditya Goel, Founder and CEO.
QuirkyByte, in fact, is one of the few networks to open up reviews on their Facebook page and have a rating of 4.6/5 as of now. A 500,000 strong fan following on Facebook in a year and an engagement rate of almost 13% (way above the industry standard) goes on to prove the popularity of this utility driven blogging site.
QuirkyByte focuses on trending and useful information across genres, contributed by passionate writers who are either fans or followers, ensuring a connect is forged between the writers and the readers. The content is research driven and rigorously checked for plagiarism, facts and grammar. Aimed at the trendy youngsters, one of the genre-strengths of QuirkyByte is the International Content in Hollywood and Television sector including Game of Thrones, Marvel Universe and DC Universe. India is a growing market for this genre and QuirkyByte is one of the rare resources of information, fun facts and trivia for this genre in India.
The company is bootstrapped, as it has been since inception. Aditya Goel, Founder and CEO started the company funded by his personal savings and faced the biggest challenge in getting talented people to write for the portal. At the young age of 19, he was duped by the initial group of hirees, ending with an account statement of INR 237. However, guided by his determination, his mentor Anuj Agarwal and V-P Aniket Aryan, he steered the company out of the storm and started moving towards commercial success.
That was then. Today, there is no looking back for QuirkyByte. Content is King. And QuirkyByte surely delivers it like one!