From April 2-5, the North American newspaper industry will gather in Washington DC for three events: NAA mediaXchange, ASNE2012, and the AP Annual Luncheon and Meeting.

We’ll be in town to share our vision of the data driven newsroom with publishers and editors. If you’re attending, come check out how the Visual Revenue content recommendation platform helps editors program the homepage and make the most out of their existing content and layout – we are at booth #610.

“Visual Revenue has been a great addition to our newsroom,” says Drew Hansen, Director of Editorial Operations & Business Development. “Their technology supports our ongoing effort to create feedback loops at critical points of the editorial process.”

We are constantly asked whether there is any reason to apply the thinking of a data driven newsroom – and that of progressive front programming in particular to media organizations using paywall’s in some way, shape or form.

Article selection and front page programming, whether that is a completely manual hand curated experience or one of sophisticated data modeling on audience and previous editorial tone, is very much something that impacts the paywall business case.

Back in December Visual Revenue was shortlisted for Econsultancy’s Innovation Award in Publishing and in our category were the likes of Random House Publishing, Sunday Publishing, The Sunday Times and Movellas. We’re very pleased to say we were the WINNER of the Innovation Award!

Dennis keynoted OMMA Metrics & Research in New York on February 21st with a talk titled “Content as a Product”. If you have a spare 30 min over lunch Dennis touches on some great challenges that the Newsroom of the future and Editors face and how data can help rather than hinder.

Publishers do not predict customer demand for content, nor do they perform traditional market research like Nike would for a new pair of sneakers. You’ve probably never heard of a publisher applying six sigma strategies to how it produces content. And when publishers promote their content, it’s rarely with the same rigor and aggression as MARS fighting for shelf space at Wal-Mart. Why not?