Search and the social graph cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog
Google has created a multibillion-dollar economy based on keywords. We use keywords to find things and advertisers use keywords to find customers. As Michael Arrington points out, this is leading to increasing amounts of low quality, keyword-stuffed content. Some people hope the social web — link sharing via Twitter, Facebook etc — will save us. On Twitter you have to ‘game’ people, not algorithms. These are both sound points. Searches related to news, blog posts, funny videos, etc. are mostly a loss leaders for Google. This is not to say that the links shared on social networks can’t be extremely valuable.
Content farms
I've been writing a lot about so-called 'content farms' in recent months - companies like Demand Media and Answers.com which create thousands of pieces of content per day and are making a big impact on the Web. Both of those two companies are now firmly inside the top 20 Web properties in the U.S., on a par with the likes of Apple and AOL. Big media, blogs and Google are all beginning to take notice. Chris Ahearn, President of Media at Thomson Reuters, recently published an article on how journalism can survive in the Internet age. TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington also riffs on this theme, mentioning AOL's "Toyota Strategy of building thousand of niche content sites via the work of cast-offs from old media" and quoting a Wired piece on Demand Media from October. I started my analysis of Demand Media in this August post. In November I explored more about how Demand Media produces 4,000 pieces of content a day, based on an interview I did with the founders in September. See also:
The Content Strategist as Digital Curato
The term “curate” is the interactive world’s new buzzword. During content creation and governance discussions, client pitches and creative brainstorms, I’ve watched this word gain traction at almost warp speed. As a transplant from museums and libraries into interactive media, I can’t help but ask what is it about this word that deserves redefinition for the web? Article Continues Below Curation has a distinguished history in cultural institutions. In galleries and museums, curators use judgment and a refined sense of style to select and arrange art to create a narrative, evoke a response, and communicate a message. For a long time, we’ve considered digital objects such as articles, slideshows, and video to be short-lived. Consider some examples: NYTimes.com Topics employs content managers who sift through The Times’ archive to create new meaning by grouping articles and resources that were filed away (or distributed to library databases). What’s the payoff?
Content Curation & Fair Use: 5 Rules to being an Ethical Content Curator
* Update: I have a much lengthier updated post that incorporates the material below: Content Curation: Copyright, Ethics, & Fair Use Recently, Kimberley Isbell of the Nieman Journalism Lab cited a Harvard Law report and published an extensive post on news aggregation and legal considerations. From a curation perspective, the whole article is interesting, but what was the most surprising was that her recommendations for being an ethical content aggregator, were the same as being an effective content curator. The five recommendations are below. You can read the full article for the legal justifications for abiding by these practices. However, I have provided some reason on why you would want to follow these guidelines from a content marketing perspective: 1. Marketing reason: The more you link to third parties, the more likely they are to link back to you – which ultimately improves your SEO. 2. 3. 4. 5. *Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
Des "commissaires d'exposition" du web pour organiser l'informat
Internet est un gigantesque musée, mais il faut accrocher les tableaux soi-même. Une nouvelle fonction est en train d'émerger, pour palier ce problème: on les appelle "digital curator", "content curator", ils sont l'équivalent d'un commissaire d'exposition dans le domaine de l'art et des musées. Sur Internet, il y a du contenu, toujours plus de contenu. Des textes, des vidéos, des images, du son. Toutes ces informations ne valent que si ont peut entrer en contact avec elles. On peut faire un parallèle avec le monde des musées. Un musée, c'est un ensemble d'objets d'arts, accumulés au fil du temps, et réunis en un lieu. Ils réunissent tous ces objets en sous ensembles cohérents: des collections, des expositions temporaires, etc. Les sites Internet sont devenus tellement touffus, avec une telle masse de contenu, qu'il est nécessaire d'organiser ce contenu. Voici quelques exemple de sites web dans lesquels le contenu est traité à la façon d'une exposition, par des "curators": Listes Twitter:
Social content curation – a shift from the traditional |
The notion of content curation is one that has traditionally been associated with libraries, archivies, galleries, or organisations working with objects or data in some way. For example, in the DCC Curation Lifecycle (UK) you will see a complex flow of the “appraise and select” activities which requires data managers to “evaluate data and select for long-term curation and preservation”. So ‘selection’ or ‘acquisition’ is then closely linked to a repository or institutional policy on collection development. Now the extraordinary thing is that the term ‘curation’ has become one of the latest buzz-words in the social online sphere, which has been transformed into an activity that is both about marketing and about organisation of the vast information flow that is delivered via social media. Social networking has definitely provided us with main channels for information flow. It comes down to organizing your sources, knowing which of them are trust worthy, and seeing patterns.
Micro Persuasion: The Digital Curator in Your Future
The Clip Report: An eBook on the Future of Media In the early 1990s when I began my career in PR there were clip reports. These were physical books that contained press clips. Today my role is to form insights into how the entire overlapped media landscape - the pros, social channels, and corporate content - is rapidly evolving and to help Edelman clients turn these learnings into actionable strategies. Today I am re-launching my Tumblr site with a new name, a new focus and a new format. It all kicks off today with a 15-page installment of The Clip Report.
New content and better access = content curation |
It seems that the latest buzzword around the web is ‘content curation’. There are literally millions of posts about this already, and new tools and new marketing strategies are being deployed to meet this new demand. Even the kids are curating, and in so doing are learning that Curation is the new search tool. Take a look at Content Curation, Social Media and Beyond. This is a quick showcase of a Scoop.It tool ( a tool I also use) on the topic of this post – using this newish aggregation tool to gather and share information in a way that is not social bookmarking, but is in keeping with a new wave of content curation developments. Content Curation: Definition and Generation, raises a few essential points: Finding the best content. Adding value. Crediting. So in a way, a content curator is continually asked to assume stewardship responsibility for digital content in ever increasing number, size, and diversity of type. Image: cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by César Poyatos
