The Curators Code
Maria started ' The curators code ' together with a number of other curators , a code to indicate that content has been 'rediscovered', including mentioning who the original source is. A bit like ' creative commons ' for images.
“Curation is more than packaging, it is to help readers (discern) what is important in the world. My responsibility as an editor and curator is to get people interested in things they don't know about yet,” says @Brainpicker .
Flipboard and Longform
The iPhone and iPad app Flipboard is such a curation tool, also called a social magazine. You can put your Twitter and Facebook feed in it and it will be transformed into a magazine, which looks very nice and is also pleasant to read. You can also choose from Flipboard suggestions (curator “boards”), put together by curator Mia Quagliarello, also on the panel. Flipboard shows brother cell phone list ads in a nicely integrated way between the content and hopes that users will appreciate these ads as much as the other content, says Mia. Next to her on the panel is Mark Linksky of Longform , a new curation app, which shows in-depth articles from the world’s best magazines. Mark believes that you can make money by placing ads with your curated content, a point of discussion in the panel. Is it ethical to make money from content that you only curate and that is therefore not your own?
New vs. old content
Mark Linsky: “New stories and old stories get clicked on the same amount in the Longform app.” That’s interesting, because Maria Popova is also concerned about the so-called ‘newsification’ of the web. Old content can be just as interesting, or even more interesting, than new content. Maria says that there are so many archives on the web (and in libraries) of great information worth discovering and sharing, because it doesn’t just surface on its own.
Brands are the new publishers
The discussion continues on who or what makes a good curator, and how to become one. Noah Grier, founder of Percolate , a tool for brands to curate social content, believes that some brands do a better job of curating than publishers. He gives the example of Red Bull , which he says covers sports better than the major sports television network ESPN . Noah continues: “For better or worse, brands are in the ecosystem of content. Brands are competing with your friends and publishers for your attention.” Finally, during the session, a preview of a video was shown with interviews with a number of well-known curators, which will be officially released next week.