- Media Curation
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Media Curation is the emerging trend toward integrating and pondering media content using a mix of machine and human resources. The practice includes Aggregation (gathering) and Curation (sorting, categorizing, art directing, and presenting) such that material from multiple sources creates a unique editorial experience for readers/visitors.
Media Curation is a complex subject among media professionals, with notable professionals both for and against the practice. Mark Cuban, a well known owner of media properties and sports teams has said that media Aggregators are "vampires" and content creators that don't ban these so-called vampires are "showing their neck" and likely to have their lifeblood sucked dry. Cuban is not alone in this position, many media companies including Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp have taken a stance against content aggregation and curation.
But just as passionate are an emerging class of new publications and editors like Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post and Michael Arrington of Tech Crunch. Arrington says Agregators are supporting readers, and business models have to evolve. New companies and services have developed like Pearltrees[1].
There are a number of trends driving the emergence of Media Curation, among them;
The large and unwieldy volume of content being created and pushed to public space on the web overwhelm individual web browsers. Machines have been able to manage this volume with improved search solutions, and human data input from user tagging, friend recommendations, popularity sites like Digg and Stumble Upon and others have provided discovery alternatives. But content consumers, readers and viewers, also require contextual relevance and aesthetic sorting. So sites like Mediaite.com that gather and organize media news and gossip for media professionals and industry observers arrive to provide a filter that is both quickly aggregated and human filtered.
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigs List says: We need to "repair(ing) some current issues with trust and curation."
Fred Wilson, well known venture capitalist and blogger (avc.com) wrote a post that clarifies the changing landscape for publishers on his blog.
Says Wilson: "If I was starting The Village Voice today, I would not print anything. I would not hire a ton of writers. I would build a website and a mobile app (or two or three). I would hire a Publisher and a few salespeople. I would hire an editor and a few journalists. And then I'd go out and find every blog, twitter, facebook, flickr, youtube, and other social media feed out there that is related to downtown NYC and I would pull it all into an aggregation system where my editor and journalists could cull through the posts coming in, curate them, and then publish them."
References
Curation is the New Search is the New Curation
The Curation Economy and The 3C’s of Information Commerce
Contect Curator is the Role of the Future
External links
Categories:
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
