A curator ingests, analyzes and contextualizes web content and information of a particular nature onto a platform or into a format we can understand. In other words, a curator is like that person at the beach with the metal detector, surfacing items and relics of perceived value. Only, a web curator shares those gems of content with their online audiences.And since people create 571 new websites every minute, tweet175 million times per day and upload 48 hours of new video each minute, a curator's work is never done.
It seems everywhere you look on the web, a different kind of curation is cropping up. Do you use Pinterest or Tumblr? Believe it or not, you're a social curator — or you're following users who are. These social platforms are as much about repinning and reblogging content from other people (curation) as they are sharing your own ideas (creation).
Take a look at your Facebook profile, at the types of articles you save on Pocket, at the list of subreddits to which you subscribe. Notice any patterns? Maybe you tend to share cat GIFs or Pocket news about the oil crisis. Sharing those interests makes you a curator.
Some believe "curator" to be a reappropriated, throwaway term, one that simply elevates marginally focused web users.
"Guess what? Assembling a group of tangentially related things and publishing them online does not make you a curator," writes Mel Buchanan, the Hermitage Museum's assistant curator in a blog post titled "An Open Letter to Everyone Using the Word ‘Curate’ Incorrectly on the Internet." [The link to the original post has since been disabled.] "So what does it make you? A blogger? A list-maker? An arbiter of taste? Sure, I’ll take any one of those. Just stop calling yourself a curator," writes Buchanan.
by Stephanie Buck, Mashable | Read more:
Image via iStockphoto, laziesVisa
