Analyzing the front page content recommendations that came out of the Visual Revenue Platform, I found that Gossip and Entertainment stories do not always rank the highest. News and Sports stories, as an example are extremely valuable, and easily assure that Lindsay Lohan doesn’t always win!

Some editors will use the Click-through Rate (CTR) of an Article Box* on the front page as a gauge for whether a piece of content deserves the exposure it’s being given. CTR is certainly better than not using any data at all, and surely more optimal than looking at how many readers are viewing my Article right now. I would like, however, to introduce two problems that discount CTR as the only gauge for success – whilst adding to the complexity of our data modeling, it’s also something that we’ve solved when predicting which Article to place where on the front page. Let me elaborate.

How publishers address the changing shape of consumer attention through social media – is the focus of the INMA publication “Newspapers and Social Media: From Monologue to Dialogue”.

Data driven editorial instructions helps publishers stay in absolute control of their front page – and with that the promotional editorial tone. This conclusion is almost contradictory to the common belief of data doing nothing else but accelerate the drive towards the lowest common denominator, which is simply not the case.