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The Curation Egg?

by KenJ
3 replies
I am sure that many of you have had emails today promoting a piece of curation software. No problems with that.
But I have two questions.
  1. Does Curation work?
  2. Why does it work?

I can't get my head around curation as an idea. I also find it hard to credit the whole idea with any value. I guess I am always suspicious of short cuts.

KenJ
#curation #egg
  • Profile picture of the author Steve B
    Ken,

    I think a lot of IMers have trouble understanding the curation model because many do it wrong and still call what they're doing "curation" even though it's not.

    Curation is not ripping off other people's content, spinning content, or syndicating other's content.

    Think of a curator in a museum. That's the person that chooses what displays are going to be seen by the public and often lays those displays out with original added explanation in an editorial style.

    Curating content is much the same. As the curator in a niche, you aggregate (bring together) valuable content in the niche and add your own commentary, voice, or "take" on what you're presenting.

    A niche curation website would function the same way. The site owner would (usually on a daily basis) set up "alerts" so that he could review the latest niche happenings and news, highlight certain articles and then provide comments.

    "Fair use" allows you to quote a short passage or two from the article you find, then add your own review, editorial, take, analysis, or related content without infringing on copyright.

    When you curate you don't use someone's whole article, spin their article, or in any other way resort to stealing their content. You always give a link back to the source of the content you curate (called attribution.)

    By far, the biggest time drain with curation is reading all the articles you find, analyzing what you're seeing, then preparing intelligent, thoughtful posts of your own that will add value to what you're going to present to your audience.

    Curation software is available to help automate parts of curation; however, in my opinion, it is only marginally useful.

    Anyone can grab a post, add "check out this article, blah, blah, blah" and call it curation. But that's not what your audience wants to see and I wouldn't call that true curation.

    Being a curator is all about being the person that is able to quickly assimilate a large amount of information and provide quality article "choosing" (to re-post), thoughtful narrative, and a compelling reason to want to stay on the web site. No software can take a human's place in doing this.

    In curation, you are the important part of the equation. Your analysis and added content is critical. One of the reasons curation is successful is that it saves people in the niche the time from hunting down all the latest news. Advertisers in your niche will love it because, once you're generating a lot of traffic, your curation site becomes a gathering place for your niche audience.

    I hope this helps a little,

    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author KenJ
    Thank you Steve. I understand the theory of curation in the real world. I do not understand why it works for websites.
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve B
      Ken,

      I think it works for several reasons:
      1. It aggregates or collects important information into one place online. Rather than hunting down interesting and valuable content all over the web, a niche fanatic can go to the curation site and find all the "good stuff" there saving a lot of time and effort.
      2. It includes meaningful analysis, editorial comment, and the author's opinion or feeling about the news in the niche. Part of the success of the curation model is the owner's own voice and insight - if you're knowledgeable in the niche and can write useful and helpful analysis or comment, you're going to give value with every article you curate. You become the authority in the niche (or one of them).
      3. I think the biggest reasons that folks attempt the curation model is so that they can build a site with always fresh content (since they are commenting on others' stories) which the search engines love, a site with lots of content, a site that gets lots of traffic (if seen as an authority in the niche), and a trusted site that they know will add value to the news.
      4. I believe that advertisers love "portals" like these - places that aggregate niche specific news and (most importantly) niche specific eyeballs. They are willing to pay to advertise on such sites - hence revenue for the owner.
      5. In addition to advertising revenue, the site owner can sell his/her own products, or recommend affiliate products in the niche. Trust is garnered from addicts to the site and selling with great conversions can be one of the side benefits to the owner.
      6. Maybe the biggest consideration for curation is the fact that if the site is successful, and garners wide interest in the niche, the owner can often "cash out" of the site at substantial profit. The biggest evidence lately is the sale of the Huffington Post to AOL for $315 million. That link is to a Forbes article about the sale.
      There are probably other benefits that could be mentioned, but these are the ones that come off the top of my head.

      Good luck to you,

      Steve
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