Rise of the Curators?
I would consider myself among the group of people who think that curators only belong in museums. For example, I cringed when I read this New York Times article: "The Word 'Curate' no Longer Belongs to the Museum Crowd." This may sound strange, coming fro
m a blogger, but I was pretty slow to warm to the concept of content-curation. The idea that we'll all be curators of some sort in the long run always seemed really far-fetched, or even scary, to me. There's also this notion of curation that's crowd-sourced (e.g., Digg) or algorithm-based (e.g., Feedly; Google), and I'm even more skeptical that this will appeal to me, other than as a source of quick-fix entertainment, if that. The whole idea of networks (or friends in networks) recommending stuff that I might like seems to only work within pretty specific zones of interest. For example, I may follow a law blogger and chances are good that other law-related blogs they read will be of interest to me, but the minute we move to a different topic such as food (for example), the recommendations start to get less useful, very quickly. I'm still pretty lukewarm on the whole concept of algorithm-based "friend recommendations," but maybe that's just me. Maybe the algorithms are not at the point where they are very effective? I'm sure much tweaking will happen or is already happening in this world.
At any rate, I've come across a group of content curators over the past six months who I've come to rely on more and more in the course of my general interest reading, and they all seem to be human-driven. These include:
I wonder what the future holds in store for these sites? None of them really have standout iPad apps (that I know of), but if they did, I would certainly rely on them for my iPad surfing. (For what it's worth, I've tried Flipboard, and I can't say I'm a huge fan.) I also wonder if there's room in the crowd-sourced space for a site that focuses on longer articles. I'm thinking of a site that ranks articles but has certain limitations, most importantly, a requirement that the article has to be a certain length in order to be included (maybe with a limited pool of sources). I'd love a Digg that just offers up articles that take at least 10 minutes to read.
Either way, I thought I would mention the ones I've come across that I've been relying on lately. Also, Twitter remains a pretty reliable source of content, but more useful for news and short articles.
m a blogger, but I was pretty slow to warm to the concept of content-curation. The idea that we'll all be curators of some sort in the long run always seemed really far-fetched, or even scary, to me. There's also this notion of curation that's crowd-sourced (e.g., Digg) or algorithm-based (e.g., Feedly; Google), and I'm even more skeptical that this will appeal to me, other than as a source of quick-fix entertainment, if that. The whole idea of networks (or friends in networks) recommending stuff that I might like seems to only work within pretty specific zones of interest. For example, I may follow a law blogger and chances are good that other law-related blogs they read will be of interest to me, but the minute we move to a different topic such as food (for example), the recommendations start to get less useful, very quickly. I'm still pretty lukewarm on the whole concept of algorithm-based "friend recommendations," but maybe that's just me. Maybe the algorithms are not at the point where they are very effective? I'm sure much tweaking will happen or is already happening in this world.At any rate, I've come across a group of content curators over the past six months who I've come to rely on more and more in the course of my general interest reading, and they all seem to be human-driven. These include:
- Give Me Something To Read (@somethingtoread);
- Brain Pickings (@brainpicker - who spends 200 hours per month curating!);
- Arts and Letters Daily (it's been around forever, but I only came across it a year or so ago);
- Longreads (@longreads);
- longform.org (@longformorg); and
- The Browser (@TheBrowser).
I wonder what the future holds in store for these sites? None of them really have standout iPad apps (that I know of), but if they did, I would certainly rely on them for my iPad surfing. (For what it's worth, I've tried Flipboard, and I can't say I'm a huge fan.) I also wonder if there's room in the crowd-sourced space for a site that focuses on longer articles. I'm thinking of a site that ranks articles but has certain limitations, most importantly, a requirement that the article has to be a certain length in order to be included (maybe with a limited pool of sources). I'd love a Digg that just offers up articles that take at least 10 minutes to read.
Either way, I thought I would mention the ones I've come across that I've been relying on lately. Also, Twitter remains a pretty reliable source of content, but more useful for news and short articles.
Venkat, I'm probably speaking out of self-interest, but I'd include in the "long-form" category those blogs where the blogger posts daily bits, however short, that continually develop consistent themes, or weave in and out of several. Maybe that's more like following a columnist, though.
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That's an interesting way to look at it.
Oddly, the little bit of work on the reader's part to weave the various posts together take this out of the "let me look for a couple of 15 minute reads before I fall asleep" category.
I read a lot of blogs (and enjoy them) but for some reason, I'm prepared for a short(er) read when it comes to blogs.
Still, an interesting point. A threaded conversation among blogs could fall into the "long form" category (or multiple posts on the same related topics).
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My apologies, I appear to have scooped you on this topic by about 8 months: http://thetrialwarrior.blogspot.com/2010/03/are-we-curators-or-duck-hunters_07.html
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No surprise - it happens often!
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