Curators and the Curation Economy
Today I came across a post by Brian Solis titled: The Curation Economy and the 3 C’s of Information Commerce. It was a great read and highly relevant to a project I’m working on right now at i.TV. This excerpt from Brian’s post especially hit home:
Tools, networks and services that cater to the role of the curator are already gaining traction… as they not only enable the repackaging and dissemination of information, they do so in captivating and engaging formats. Like social networks, these services also connect people to one another, but instead of creating social graphs, curation networks weave interest graphs. Rather than creating original content, curators discover relevant content and share it within their networks of relevance with added perspective. The stream of an interest graph is rich with context and narrative allowing anyone connected to learn and interact based on the subject matter that captivates them.
I think that what Brian says about interest graphs is spot on. I gain a huge amount of value from curators on Twitter because I mainly follow people aligned with my interests. Also, when they share a link with a bit of commentary, they augment the information consumption experience with their own insights.