competitive awareness

Skepticism is good. This is good to know.

 

Nicholas

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"Where you read something may impact credibility as much as what you read - especially if where you read something is on Twitter, according to a new study."

This interesting study related by Read Write Web shows that people tended to be skeptical when discovering a study on Twitter which is dominated by news but where they are mixed with celebrities updates and other tweets. Apparently an adverse effect on Twitter's credibility.

The study didn't say whether dedicated social curation was a remedy but it's an interesting possibility judging from the facts outlined in the report.

Via gdecugis

Thanks Robin!

 

But if you, like me, are on the lookout for new and effective tools to curate your own content or the one of your customers, I have created a comprehensive map of all the curation tools available online and I keep it fresh and ...

Interesting app. Thanks Robin!

 

Also check out the Tweather pilot at http://pilot.tweather.co/

for another way of seeing patterns in Twitter topic streams. It's free to use in Beta.

 

-Nicholas Herold

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Robin Good: SeeSaw is a new web app which allows you to easily monitor social media news streams on any topic and in real-time.

 

You can pick and select which news stories to find by using hashtags, or specific search keywords. Once Seesaw starts visualizing the live social stream on that topic you can begin to save, pull together into collections and/or share them on your social media channels.

 

Each search you make can be saved and labelled and reloaded and updated in real-time with one click.

Very useful for monitoring specific topics and finding relevant stories to collect, share or post.

 

Free to use. Login with Twitter.

 

Read more: http://sees.aw/about-us/

 

Try it out now: http://sees.aw 

 

Via Robin Good, Giuseppe Mauriello

Nice piece. Thanks to gdecugius!

-Nicholas Herold

 

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Way to go Beth!

 

 

HT to gdecugius:  Beth Kanter wrote a very complete and interesting piece in NTEN's latest edition of their quarterly journal for non-profit leaders. You have to download the journal but it's worth it and it's free (you just need to register). 

 

It's been fascinating for me to see how non-profits seem to embrace Social Media in general and Content Curation in particular - Beth of course being a key advocate in that move.

 

The broader take-away that I see for those of us in all sorts of organizations, as independant professionals or SMB-owners is the validation it brings to the model. When tightly-budgeted NPO's embrace a practice as a group, you can bet they're not wasting their scarce resources on a hype. They have to be efficient and as Beth puts it in the article: "Putting content curation into practice is part art form, part science, but mostly about daily practice. You don’t need to do it for hours, but 20 minutes every day will help you develop and hone the skills."

 

This is precisely where we see the opportunity with curation for professionals: building up a good practice that fits with one's daily routine and that -as Beth puts it - brings great "unexpected benefits".

Via gdecugis, IdeaEncore

Way cool tech.

 

Nicholas Herold

 

------------

Robin Good: Vyclone is a new free iPhone app which allows you to include and remix your own video footage with the ones of your friends recording the same event.

 

Vyclone synchronizes and edits everyone's clips to create one movie with all the angles cut together. The good thing is that you get the raw footage too. "So if you like, you can remix it to make your own director's cut."

 

Mashable writes in its review: "...the app lets two or more users create a collaborative video with others who are also shooting an iPhone video in physical proximity to them even if you’re not friends with or even aware the other people are shooting a video. The result is an almost instant multi-angle video of an event that you’ll swear was created by a professional video editor."

 

Source: http://mashable.com/2012/07/19/vyclone-turns-your-iphone-video-into-a-multi-camera-masterpiece/

 

FAQ: http://www.vyclone.com/faq

 

Download app (free): http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/vyclone/id521680614?mt=8

 

More info: http://www.vyclone.com/

 

 

Via Robin Good

As usual, Robin Good sums up the situation correctly.

 

 

Robin Good: Many content curation tools promise to make your content publishing job easier, faster and better. But is it really so? Does less work and more automated aggregation/filtering guarantee a higher quality result?

 

Christa Carone writes on Fast Company: "New content curation tools make automating the job easier--but easy may not always be as effective.

 

It would be a mistake to let algorithms do the entire job for you. No one knows your audience like you do.

 

And, keeping the human touch in the process is more real, which is really important to today's info-overloaded consumer."

 

Yes, the human touch. Not the human click to rapidly share, repost or reblog. The human touch as in the act of adding value in ways that go beyond being someone who passes on interesting items.

 

And to achieve that, someone needs to manually stop, research, read, check and contribute something of value. it doesn't happen automatically.

 

"The companies that are truly winning over audiences and driving consumers are the ones that are experimenting with a balance of automated aggregation and human-directed curation.

 

It's a process of out-sourcing and in-sourcing.

 

I've been following Intel's approach. It recently launched iQ, an employee-curated digital magazine created to connect with a younger audience and share with them the bigger, living brand story.

 

Not only does the site provide original stories about tech, it also aggregates top tech stories from other sites that Intel's audience will find interesting... all closely watched by editor-in-chief Bryan Rhoades, who spurs conversations by judiciously placing some stories on the iQ homepage.

NASCAR, too, is experimenting in this space. A partnership with Twitter includes a site that compiles #NASCAR-related tweets from popular drivers, who send 140-character blasts from the track or wherever they may be-- along with those from sports writers and other industry folks.

 

They pull it off by using a search algorithm and human editors who understand narrative---and appropriate content."

 

Rightful. 7/10

 

Full article: http://www.fastcompany.com/1841964/the-content-conundrum-to-create-or-automate ;

 

Via Robin Good

This is a nice, clear infographic. Well worth checking out.

 

Every web publisher — and especially content marketer — yearns for an engaged and loyal audience. But with the sheer volume of noise, clutter and — well, content — online it can be hard to figure out how to reach people and keep them coming back for more.

 

The content marketing agency BlueGlass knows a lot about how to do this well. They’ve run successful campaigns for clients including eBay, Conde Nast and Greatist. Now BlueGlass is ready to share some of its secrets with Mashable readers. The company produced this exclusive infographic to run down some of the ways you too can build an engaged audience online.

Via Jonha Revesencio, donhornsby, Martin (Marty) Smith