It might seem like I’ve been bashing print publishers a lot in recent blog posts, but I don’t think they’re doing everything wrong. If nothing else, they’re learning smart lessons from their experiences in digital media, as demonstrated in this article that discusses publisher Hearst’s initiative to apply Web-like analytics to their print products:

“…Hearst held a competition to see who could build a better analytics model to predict newsstand sales for magazines. It’s a Netflix Prize-like approach to figuring out how well a magazine will sell at a given location, based off historical sales data. There were more than 700 participants in the competition, and last month Hearst and the Direct Marketing Association awarded a team US$25,000 for their formula, which generated magazine sales estimates that were nearest to actual newsstand figures. ”

Smart and savvy. Read more here.

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