[ed. Curation seems to be a hot topic these days (see previous post: You Are Not a Curator. Here's a more nuanced perspective. I'm not invested in any particular term I just think of it as aggregating, sharing, or the digital eqivalent of a filing cabinet.]
It’s been three months since our last Internet debate about “curation,” so by all means, let’s have another one!
The latest argument began last week after a mysterious tweet seemed to finally produce hard evidence that curators do, in fact, think they are better than everyone else. I’ve never met a “curator” who believes this, and it’s the same straw man argument that is concocted every three months.
So let’s get this out of the way now: Curation only exists because this is an incredible time for creation. It all starts and ends with a writer, a photographer, a filmmaker, or a publisher who creates or funds that work. The rest of us are just looking for something to inspire us, and when we do, we want to share it with others. And in the end, we all want to find ways to support the financing of creators’ work.
Yet every three months we get angry about the word “curation”—Is it “twee”? Who do these people think they are? Why don’t they get real jobs? Why are we so angry at people who are out there doing this for free?—but once again, we fail to ask any of the most pressing questions about curation in the Twitter and Facebook era.
Here are those questions, in order:
1. Is curation actually valuable, and do we have proof that it is, or is not?
A few successful curators, as I would define them, on Twitter include: Paul Kedrosky (@pkedrosky, 213,000+ followers), Anthony De Rosa (@antderosa, 30,000+ followers), Matthew Keys (@producermatthew, 11,000+ followers), Maria Popova (@brainpicker, 180,000+ followers), Heidi Moore (@moorehn, 18,000+ followers), Danyel Smith (@danamo, 20,000+ followers), Kevin Smokler (@weegee, 65,000 followers), and Jodi Ettenberg (a contributing editor for Longreads and Travelreads, whose @legalnomads has 14,000 followers).
You can argue about their respective tastes and whether you’re into what they’re slinging, but based on their follower counts, it’s tough to argue that what they do isn’t valuable to their audiences. When they link to a story, in most cases publishers will see a bump in new visitors. If you’re a publisher, you might just see “Twitter.com” in your Google Analytics referrals, but these are actual people, and their recommendations mean something to their followers.
To break it down further: For many curators, their work is valuable because their followers trust them to make objective, worthwhile recommendations, and they do so consistently. They’re valuable because they offer a consistent, reliable service.
Consistency is the defining trait that seems to separate “professional” curation and linkblogging from the occasional “oh hey look at this.” The web is a customer-service medium, and curation is just one of those services.
It doesn’t matter whether you believe the act of curation requires no more talent than managing the Employee Picks shelf at Barnes & Noble, or working the graveyard shift at your college radio station. People appreciate it if you save them a little time and point them to interesting work that might not show up in a “most popular” algorithm.
by Mark Armstrong, Read more:
It’s been three months since our last Internet debate about “curation,” so by all means, let’s have another one!
The latest argument began last week after a mysterious tweet seemed to finally produce hard evidence that curators do, in fact, think they are better than everyone else. I’ve never met a “curator” who believes this, and it’s the same straw man argument that is concocted every three months.
So let’s get this out of the way now: Curation only exists because this is an incredible time for creation. It all starts and ends with a writer, a photographer, a filmmaker, or a publisher who creates or funds that work. The rest of us are just looking for something to inspire us, and when we do, we want to share it with others. And in the end, we all want to find ways to support the financing of creators’ work.
Yet every three months we get angry about the word “curation”—Is it “twee”? Who do these people think they are? Why don’t they get real jobs? Why are we so angry at people who are out there doing this for free?—but once again, we fail to ask any of the most pressing questions about curation in the Twitter and Facebook era.
Here are those questions, in order:
1. Is curation actually valuable, and do we have proof that it is, or is not?
A few successful curators, as I would define them, on Twitter include: Paul Kedrosky (@pkedrosky, 213,000+ followers), Anthony De Rosa (@antderosa, 30,000+ followers), Matthew Keys (@producermatthew, 11,000+ followers), Maria Popova (@brainpicker, 180,000+ followers), Heidi Moore (@moorehn, 18,000+ followers), Danyel Smith (@danamo, 20,000+ followers), Kevin Smokler (@weegee, 65,000 followers), and Jodi Ettenberg (a contributing editor for Longreads and Travelreads, whose @legalnomads has 14,000 followers).
You can argue about their respective tastes and whether you’re into what they’re slinging, but based on their follower counts, it’s tough to argue that what they do isn’t valuable to their audiences. When they link to a story, in most cases publishers will see a bump in new visitors. If you’re a publisher, you might just see “Twitter.com” in your Google Analytics referrals, but these are actual people, and their recommendations mean something to their followers.
To break it down further: For many curators, their work is valuable because their followers trust them to make objective, worthwhile recommendations, and they do so consistently. They’re valuable because they offer a consistent, reliable service.
Consistency is the defining trait that seems to separate “professional” curation and linkblogging from the occasional “oh hey look at this.” The web is a customer-service medium, and curation is just one of those services.
It doesn’t matter whether you believe the act of curation requires no more talent than managing the Employee Picks shelf at Barnes & Noble, or working the graveyard shift at your college radio station. People appreciate it if you save them a little time and point them to interesting work that might not show up in a “most popular” algorithm.
by Mark Armstrong, Read more:
