Real Time Market Research on Headlines

Thursday, October 15. 2009

Real Time Market Research on Headlines

The Huffington Post is doing some interesting stuff on real time market research on headlines, as Nieman Labs notes:

A/B Option Testing

Readers are randomly shown one of two headlines for the same story. After five minutes, which is enough time for such a high-traffic site, the version with the most clicks becomes the wood that everyone sees.

Headlines have always played the most promotional role in news, charged with selling readers on the articles they adorn, so it only makes sense to apply the best tools of market research to their crafting. Think of it as a more rigorous version of magazines adjusting their covers based on newsstand sales.

Crowdsourcing better headline ideas on Twitter

The Huffington Post’s new social media editor, Josh Young, has also been soliciting better headlines from readers on Twitter. That’s not as awesomely scientific, but it’s a pretty good use of the crowd.

Apparently they are also looking at different US East and West Coast editions

Posted by Alan Patrick in Digital Media Web 2.0 at 09:09 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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