Curation Revolution

Robin Good: Good article by Rex Hammock on RexBlog.com highlighting the confusion arising from using the term curation when it is not really appropriate. 

He writes: "Somewhere along the way, the inherently-confusing metaphor of curation being applied to content on the web went from something like, finding relevant content and pointing readers to it to something like, find content on other sites and simply re-write what they say and place it on our site and that’s okay, as long as somewhere you credit the source.”

He has several more interesting points. here a few key excerpts from it: "While I believe “curation media” can be a helpful service to readers, the act of writing a story that rehashes another story — without adding some insight or background — is a disservice to all involved.

...

"...I’m not suggesting that the act of sharing articles you run across is anything but good. I’m not even suggesting that websites like Huffington Post or Business Insider are nothing more than re-writing services. (I’m not “suggesting” it, as it’s well known.)

This is the bottom line: To be of any value (or to prevent you from appearing foolish), your curation needs to be more than merely re-writing something that has already been re-written one or two times.

If you feel the need to do that, just link."

Rightful. 7/10

Full article: http://www.rexblog.com/2012/06/14/47898 

****** Like Robin I give this 7 out of 10. Ther are some curators such as Robin I rarely add much content to because they are expressing my thoughts in some cases better than me. Part of good curating is to select and share, or just select. I just posted a great Infographic by MaxOz (how the world spends its time online) because it fit something I believe or am interested in. In Such a case a rare straight scoop is fine.

Mostly I am way to talkative and full of beans to not weigh in (lol). As far as the "rewriting" goes I agree with Robin, not adding anything and calling it yours doesn't make it so. If someone were to paraphrase my writing, call it their curation and then give credit they insult me. Like shooting me and then apologizing - the one doesn't compensate for the other :).

Marty

PS. See my Scoop of Robin's DisplayNote review on Startup Revolution for Part II of this conversation about curation.