Signal, Curation, Discovery - John Battelle's Searchblog
This past week I spent a fair amount of time in New York, meeting with smart folks who collectively have been responsible for funding and/or starting companies as varied as DoubleClick, Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr, Federated Media (my team), and scores of others. I also met with some very smart execs at American Express, a company that has a history of innovation, in particular as it relates to working with startups in the Internet space. I love talking with these folks, because while we might have business to discuss, we usually spend most of our time riffing about themes and ideas in our shared industry. Since its inception, the web has presented us with a discovery problem. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Our first solution to the web’s initial discovery problem was to curate websites into directories, with Yahoo being the most successful of the bunch. But directories have clumsy interfaces, and they didn’t scale to the overwhelming growth in the number of websites.
Jonathan Stray: In 2011, news orgs will finally start to move past the borders of their own content
Editor’s Note: We’re wrapping up 2010 by asking some of the smartest people in journalism what the new year will bring. Today, our predictor is Jonathan Stray, interactive technology editor for the Associated Press and a familiar byline here at the Lab. His subject: the building of new multi-source information products, and whether it’ll be news organizations that do the building. 2011 will be the year that news organizations finally start talking about integrated products designed to serve the complete information needs of consumers, but it won’t be the year that they ship them. News used to be more or less whatever news organizations published and broadcast. Unencumbered by such tribalism — and lacking content creation behemoths of their own — the information technology industry has long understood the value of curating multiple sources, including traditional news content. But as of yet, there are few integrated products. This is also about being multi-platform.
The Role of Curation in Developing and Transmitting News
A new frontier of opportunity is in the ways news is being developed, packaged, and transmitted. Curated filters are becoming more interactive. From the New York Times offering personalized news recommendations, to this past week's launch of TheDaily, a subscription-based app for the iPad indexed by Andy Baio on the Web, and the upcoming release of News.me. Personalization has been around for a while. Forget the press release. All those pitching with one, do you copy this? Curating news delivery People are getting used to seeing what other people are reading and talking about out in the open -- in public streams like Twitter and Facebook, as well as deeper features on blogs. Mainstream media is launching initiatives that more closely align with this new reality. starting with building a platform -- where you literally begin the process of creating a content hub on one of your online properties to attract traffic, conversation, and conversion. Business is social
Why Content Curation Is Here to Stay
Steve Rosenbaum is the CEO of Magnify.net, a video Curation and Publishing platform. Rosenbaum is a blogger, video maker and documentarian. You can follow him on Twitter @magnify and read more about Curation at CurationNation.org. For website content publishers and content creators, there's a debate raging as to the rights and wrongs of curation. The debate pits creators against curators, asking big questions about the rules and ethical questions around content aggregation. In trying to understand the issue and the new emerging rules, I reached out to some of the experts who are weighing in on how curation could help creators and web users have a better online experience. The Issues at Hand Content aggregation (the automated gathering of links) can be seen on sites like Google News. But all that changes with curation — the act of human editors adding their work to the machines that gather, organize and filter content. Who are curators? Where We Stand Now
Collector or Curator? Becoming a Social Connoisseur
It used to be that you were a wine or art collector to be considered a connoisseur. These curators of their personal taste and beauty would search for pieces that fit a collection they would be proud to show off to their friends. Picking what went into their collection wasn’t easy, because it had to fit a certain rule set to showcase the very best. The very act of curating was an art form unto itself. True discerning curators never just share their physical objects; They share the stories behind them, about why each object was hand picked and the personal connection they had with the object that makes each share come alive. Today’s modern day curator is a curator of knowledge. You might be saying to yourself right now, “What does this all have to do with me?” Here are 5 ways to become a modern day social connoisseur: 1) It Speaks to Me – simply put, what you read or see has to touch how you feel. 3) Deliver your Point - If it didn’t deliver and the author rambled, forget about it.
