Focus Insightfully - CM #11
Insights, trends, tools and real-world examples of how to create profitable online projects by organizing existing information.
Welcome to issue #11 of Curation Monetized.
I am Robin Good, a passionate researcher of content curation since 2004, writing you from Holbox island in Mexico.
What I do: I assist indie entrepreneurs who are expert about a topic in creating valuable resources to increase one’s authority, visibility and reputation and that can also generate a revenue.
Who is this for:
indie entrepreneurs, creators
journalists
subject-matter experts, consultants, advisors
The Free edition (which you are reading now) of this newsletter offers:
- key insights and trends relating to content curation, organizing information and related monetization and business models.
The Premium edition provides:
additional insights
a unique selection of tools and apps (6 new tools in the September edition)
six real-world examples of online projects that monetize by organizing existing information with:
detailed references (niche, business model, platforms, authors) along with my
notes on the curator’s job
insights
potential business opportunities.
Key Curation Insights
1) Focus Insightfully
To be in the curation business, you need to consider these two very important things:
1) Focus
You need to serve a particular group of people who has a specific need / interest / problem (tribe).
If you curate too many different things that serve the needs of very different tribes you end up with nothing that you can sell or offer successfully.
I know that the temptation to include all the interesting things you may find is strong, but the more you vary and broaden your coverage, the more diluted the value of your newsletter becomes (unless you are an outstanding writer and commenter / critical analyzer of the things you find).
2) Insightfully
Sharing interesting things, if they have focus, has value.
Contextualizing the same items for your specific audience and need, by explaining, from your expert viewpoint, what are the key benefits it provides, doubles the value.
Suggesting what is the relevance of such benefits to overcome the obstacles your tribe has, and how to utilize / apply / leverage such resources effectively, triples it.
It is what you see through something, and not just your mere description of it, that gives deep value to what you highlight and share.
Robin Good
2) Curation Opportunities (Typical Mistakes)
As I see a lot of curation projects, I can’t avoid noticing the typical mistakes, overlooks and plain malpractices that - consciously or not - new curators/creators make.
Here a shortlist of the most frequent ones:
a) Context
Sharing without contextualizing
b) Insight
Presenting resources without adding your critical insight
c) Depth
Focusing on quantity rather than depth/quality
d) Information Design
Formatting and organizing information just like most websites, blogs, newsletters do
e) Attribution
Not providing constant credit, attribution and references to your sources
There are certainly more areas where novice curators fail, but these are the most frequent stumbling blocks for the typical new player.
The good thing to do, is to analyze these against your own practices and to use these specific points to get much better at what most do not so well.
Robin Good
3) How To Take Great Notes - Francis Ford Coppola
Before shooting "The Godfather", Francis Ford Coppola meticulously read the novel by Mario Puzo and wrote down his initial impressions and ideas, believing it was important to capture immediately and in a unique personal fashion what would go in the making of each of the movies scenes.
For this purpose Coppola created a "prompt book" inspired by the theater tradition, where he pasted each page of the original book novel onto loose-leaf paper, allowing him to have a comprehensive master document to work from.
The prompt book, titled "The Godfather Notebook," was organized into sections with key criteria including synopsis, times, imagery and tone, core elements, and potential pitfalls to avoid.
Coppola used this multi-layered roadmap to direct the film, often preferring it over the actual screenplay because it contained Mario Puzo's original text and his own detailed notations.
He emphasized certain scenes, like the killing of Sollozzo and McCluskey, with detailed annotations and visual descriptions, understanding their crucial importance to the story and the film's impact.
His effort in creating this notebook should be of inspiration and example to those who think about curating content professionally.
Even if you don’t have to shoot a film, Coppola’s curating attitude and approach is the one that can generate great ideas and insights around any chosen topic, resource or story.
Source: Dinuk Wijeratne - “Francis Coppola's Notebook on 'The Godfather'” - video directed by Kim Aubry - 2001
4) New Intersection: Communities, Curation, Knowledge
“We are living through the emergence of a new business category that doesn’t even have a name yet, but which I believe will become an important part of our digital lives: online communities at the intersection of content curation and knowledge management.”
Three factors are at the foundation of this change:
a) Obsessed with the Present
The architecture of digital platforms has made us obsessive documenters and consumers of the present, yet largely indifferent to the archives we create.
b) No Memory
The architecture of digital platforms encourage us to consume information because it’s in front of us, not because it’s relevant.
On [social media], nothing has to be remembered, studied, applied, or reflected on. It’s an environment that promotes distracted thinking and superficial learning.
The human brain is incredible at uncovering meaning, but is deficient at long-term memory storage. If we forget what we read, we can’t apply the knowledge to the problem at hand.
With our current tools, the burden of memory is left to the individual.
c) Shallow Architecture
Curation has been too focused on the information and not enough on the architecture; how we collect, store, augment, and utilize what’s already in our minds.
Source: - Check Your Pulse #55 newsletter
Key Curation Trends
Web Scraping
You may not have heard about it, but there exist an approach and a multitude of apps, technologies and services that allow anyone to automatically gather any kind of specific data that is being published on the internet.
Weather data.
Events data.
Industry and companies data.
Products.
Prices.
Anything you can think of.
Not always who publishes valuable data and has it scraped and re-used by others is going to be happy, but you need to look at each situation individually to determine where are the limits of what is feasible and legal and what is not.
What is it
Web scraping is like having a special robot that gathers specific information from selected websites automatically.
Imagine you want to collect a lot of data from different web pages, like prices of products, news articles, or weather forecasts. Instead of doing it by hand, which would take a very long time, web scraping lets you do it quickly and efficiently.
What problem it solves
Sometimes we need a lot of information from the internet, but it's just too much to collect manually. Web scraping helps people get this information in a much faster way. For example, businesses might use web scraping tools or online services to automatically scrape certain data from selected websites at specific time intervals. Alternatively web scraping could be used to keep an eye on competitors' prices, or by researchers to gather specific data for their studies.
Who benefits most from it
Businesses, researchers, and developers. Businesses can use it to gather niche data, market info, track prices, or to monitor customer reviews. Researchers can use it to collect data for studies or analyze trends on the internet. Developers to create new applications or tools that rely on internet data.
Pros of web scraping
1. **Efficient Data Collection**:
It allows for quick and automated gathering of large amounts of data from the internet.
2. **Real-Time Information**
Web scraping can provide up-to-date information, which is crucial for businesses and researchers.
3. **Competitive Advantage**
Businesses can use web scraping to stay ahead of the competition by monitoring market trends and competitor activities.
4. **Customization**
It can be tailored to extract specific information, allowing for a highly targeted approach.
5. **Automation and Scalability**
Web scraping can be automated to run regularly, saving time and effort in the long run.
Cons of web scraping
1. **Legal Issues**
Some websites have rules against web scraping, and if not done responsibly, it can lead to legal problems.
2. **Ethical Concerns**
Scraping sensitive or personal data without proper consent can raise ethical issues and breach privacy laws.
3. **Data Quality and Reliability**
Not all websites have consistent and reliable data, which can lead to inaccuracies in the scraped information.
4. **Site Structure Changes**
If a website changes its structure, the scraping code might break, requiring adjustments.
5. **Resource Intensive**
Intensive scraping activities can put a strain on servers and networks, potentially causing disruptions or bans.
To find out more about web scraping tools and services available online, please check out this free guide I have put together recently: Web Scrapers and Data Extractors
Recommended Curation Tools & Resources
*Available in the September CM #11 Premium Edition
new private/crowdsourced and curated knowledgebase
PKM tool
personal digest builder
monetizable directories builder
upcoming Pinterest alternative
template/foundation for learning PKM inside Obsidian
Get the details / Premium subscription
Curation Monetized: Real World Examples
Profitable curation projects available in the September Premium Edition:
Directory of VCs and Investors
Data on over 90,000+ angels and venture capitalists complete with their investment interests and contact info.Catalog of Premium Directories Where To Submit Your Startup
Database of 100+ premium directories where new app, startups, web apps and services can be listed.Examples Library of User-Flows and UI Elements for W3 Apps
Library of 1K+ screen examples (user flows) and interface elements from proven 10+ W3-type of online products.Remote-Only Jobs Offers Marketplace
Directory of available tech freelancers and job board for remote-only offers.Blog of Uniquely Curious and Interesting Things
People, books, films, online resources and ideas that show how creative and inventive humanity is.Library of Free Software for Windows, Mac and the Web
Historic library of downloadable free software for Windows, Mac and the web, that includes older versions.
The above are all online projects that monetize by organizing existing information.
Subscribe to Curation Monetized Premium to get the details on each one of these projects and to support my work in this direction.
To get a look at a Premium issue check out the first issue of CM.
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from sunny Holbox island (MX)
Robin Good
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