The DNA of a Successful Book

You make a good point. What I was trying to get at is that HuffingtonPost has a DNA that's different than many of the previous "new media" models that didn't perform nearly as well.

It's not that book publishing's success stories will exactly resemble HuffPo. In fact they will likely look very different. Rather, I expect the internal process to be very similar, in that the winners will use data to win arguments, will move fast and break things, etc.

And maybe the book culture could use a bit more medium/low-brow culture to better expand beyond its core audience. An analogy would be how a blockbuster movie like "The Dark Knight" manages to both be very entertaining but also appeal to a huge audience.