Age of Curation

The New York Times and three other leading global news organizations are joining Knight-Mozilla OpenNews, a partnership aimed at driving open source innovation in news.

This could be an emblematic announcement for the future of publishing. Technology and Media coming closer is an interesting trend and one that shows some in the Media industry understand their future is in embracing technology; not fighting it.

This is a cross-post from Altimeter Group Researcher Jaimy Szymanski. I excerpted from the article:

"Curation is taking over the digital content scene. With related applications and platforms multiplying, the act of collecting and sharing content has become second nature for most of us.

When talking data it’s far simpler to look at all the content out there and curate, rather than analyze the gaps and create new, original content to fill them.

This brings up some unnerving questions as well:
- With curation on the rise, what effect will this have on the creation of new, interesting, valuable and thought-provoking content online?
- When (if at all) will curated content be accepted as unique content?
- What happens when curators far outnumber creators?

But, upon taking a closer look behind the why of curation, the researcher found potential value pulling some data from Trendstream.

***Motivations Behind Content Curation and Sharing:

1) Motivations behind curation are positive: to share a good experience, to help consumer pick out good product and to encourage company improvement.

2) Millennials share content focused on “self.” As generations get older, secondary motivation shifts to a bigger picture though, to helping consumers. Add to that the fact that many have grown up recognizing technology as a platform for both utility and self-expression or promotion.

3) Fostering expertise is among lowest motivations. I predict that curated content will increasingly be more accepted as “original” content over time, as long as it contains some unique insight or alteration.

***Where Curation Opportunities Lie:

Curation will prove to be a very positive trend for marketers who are looking to affect their audience via way of content marketing.

It’s quite possible that content curators will also begin to be recognized as influencers in their respective industries, and organizations will treat them as such.

I’ll end with a few final thoughts: 

1) The amount of content curated will rise and fall in cycles, as shared content depends on original content creation to survive.
2) Organizations will weave curation into their content strategies, at the very least to ensure sharing of their content is as simple as possible for consumers.
3) Application development – both web-based and mobile – will continue to support the curation trend."

Read full article here: 
http://www.altimetergroup.com/2012/03/content-curation-truths-threats-motivations-and-opportunities.html

Robin Good: Curatr, an elearning platform built upon the idea of discovery through the curation and sense-making of existing information, has just released an updated version of its platform which you can check out here: http://www.curatr.co.uk/index2.php 

Live demo: http://www.curatr.co.uk/index2.php?view=demo 

Curatr allows professional trainers, experts, and teachers, as much as students to organize and curate information for the purpose of learning.

What I like very much is the Curatr promotional video, which says lots of true things about education and about the way we should carry it out in the future. The next-button-robot approach to information memorization needs to be replaced with a new approach: learning to understand how learners construct knowledge.

Curatr is about the construction of the scaffolding that allows people to learn and to find the resources that should help them best learn what they are interested into. 

Promising. Insightful. 8/10

Find out more:  http://www.curatr.co.uk/