What CNN Can Learn From Buying Zite

CNN just bought Zite, the magazine-style iPad newsreader, for a reported $20 million.

So what’s in it for them?

The media conglomerate says it plans to leave Zite alone and doesn’t want to integrate it into its existing assets, or clog up the app by forcing CNN content into it — something Zite CEO Mark Johnson promises won’t happen either. So what is the purpose of buying the app at all then? If CNN is smart, watching what happens inside Zite could give it something that all media companies are in desperate need of, whether they know it or not: real-time insights into what people really want to read about, instead of what CNN editors think they want to read about.