Back when we launched the Knight News Challenge in 2006, using contests to spur innovation was a relatively new concept. But in just four years, the number of similar competitions in the media, information and communication field has doubled.

So we decided to take a closer look at the contests globally, to see if we could adapt any lessons to improve the News Challenge.' We reviewed all 29 contests, including the Stockholm Challenge, NetSquared' N2Y4 Challenge, We Media Pitch It and Sunlight Lab Apps for America contests, and explored their judging criteria, outreach and marketing plans, application and selection processes. Along the way, we also interviewed former News Challenge judges and entrepreneurs for their insights too.

Today, we want to share the resulting study, conducted by Arabella Advisors, with the greater community. We hope anyone running or hoping to launch a contest ' or innovators searching for funding ' will find it as useful as we did.

You can access the PDF of this study here.

- Mayur Patel, Gary Kebbel and Jose Zamora

Note: This post is cross-posted at the News Challenge blog.