Purpose Is the Key - CM #10
Insights, trends, tools and real-world examples of how to create profitable online projects by organizing existing information.
Welcome to issue #10 of Curation Monetized.
I am Robin Good, a passionate researcher of content curation since 2004, writing you from Holbox island in Mexico.
I assist indie entrepreneurs who are expert about a topic in creating valuable resources that are useful for others, that increase one’s authority, visibility and reputation and that can also potentially generate a revenue.
Who is this for:
indie entrepreneurs, creators
journalists
subject-matter experts, consultants, advisors
The Free edition 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 August 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) Learn How To Be Subtractive
We often think of curation as something that has to do with collecting stuff, but once you start doing it you realize that the key skill you develop over time is your ability to exclude what is not of value.
“Collecting is additive but, interestingly, curation is subtractive — what you leave out is almost more important than what you include.
A great way to think about collection and curation is described by Frank Chimero in his post about sorting a mass.
Consider collection as a bowl of loose pearls and curation as a pearl necklace.
Collection is like a bowl of pearls.
The individual pearls may be of great value, but they are pretty useless just gathered together in the bowl.
Curation is what happens when particular pearls are selected from the bowl, and strung into a beautiful necklace.
The pearls now have a purpose...”
Source: Kay Oddone - “Digital Content Curation - How To Do It Right”
2) Build Trust
To trust someone I need to see that he has strong familiarity with the terrain and experience in traveling through it.
If you want to become an expert in a niche how do you showcase that familiarity and expertise?
You do that by critically organizing and presenting information resources that help those who operate in that sector.
"...good curators are trusted guides “who offer valuable information, in the form of articles, courses, tutorials, video, podcasts or in other formats, on a specific subject-matter and who have earned, over-time, deep-trust from their readers, followers and fans.”
Source: Steve Rayson - “23 Content Curation Tips from Experts”
3) Create Value
Finding interesting things is not enough.
What makes them valuable is YOUR take on them.
What do you think of it?
Why are you sharing it?
Why do you think it’s valuable for me to check it out?
“The key to create value with content curation is to add context and to make your personal voice heard. All the rest is almost certainly an illusion at best, and quite likely a waste of time.”
Source: Robin Good - “The Key Benefits of Content Curation”
4) Share With a Purpose
The more focussed your intention, when you browse, explore and read content online, the greater the chance that you can find golden nuggets for your tribe that will make them rejoice while increasing your competence and reputation in their eyes.
Don’t bring back just anything interesting you find out there.
Make an effort to keep your focus on your niche audience key needs and interests.
“Those who find success on social networks, and anywhere else one might share things, are those who share with a purpose.”
Source: Colin Wright - “Curation is Creation”
Key Curation Trends
Humans Replace Algorithms
It looks like some tiny steps in this direction are finally being made. Humans gradually replacing (or better yet: complementing) crawlers and algorithms in search.
This has been my vision for 20 years now.
Internet users acting as individual web crawlers (every site you visit becomes part of a P2P distributed decentralized index) as well as filters for what is relevant and what’s not.
Filtering algorithms would still exist, but they would be transparent as to what they do, and users could decide which filters/algos to use.
For example I could customize my personal search engine to rank websites by looking at specific factors (length, author reputation, similarity with other content, etc.) while not giving great importance to others (ads presence, layout, recency, etc.).
Search engine users could themselves develop specific algorithms and filters and be paid for their use by either the search engine or by users wanting to rent / buy them.
Check out these interesting new search engines who give a glimpse of what could be possible by going deeper in this direction:
Brave
Independent index. Allows users to apply their own rules and filters: Brave Goggles. Respects privacy. Does not track users.
100% free.Mojeek
Independent index and algorithms. No tracking. Allows to create personalized, custom results: Mojeek Focus.
100% free.Kagi
Private search engine. No ads, no tracking. Premium meta-search. Customizable. Allows to personalize results and create filters: Kagi Lenses. Requires registration.
Free for up to 100 searches - starts at $5/moPresearch
Built on a decentralized network of volunteer-run nodes. Runs on blockchain. Offers PRE-tokens.
100% free.
Imagine if:
a) Search was similar to a free public service.
b) Users could see search ranking and filtering factors and if they wanted, they could change them according to their own specific needs and preferences.
c) “Trusted search curators” for specific vertical information niches started to become the new relevant results.
The idea is that they could provide the needed “trust” and transparency to search results by co-creating curated collections on the topics in which they have already demonstrated a high level of competence.
d) An ecosystem of open-source, public search algorithms, filters, aggregators, and curated collections of sites and resources on specific topics emerged.
e) Content indexing became a distributed activity in the hands of us, the users. With this approach, individual users contribute to the index and add information to a shared database aggregating each user's personal index.
In this fashion, users not ONLY would have greater control of what is actually indexed, but they would actually be creating a real search commons index — a collaborative effort by all users that is available to everyone.
(An example of a distributed search engine — where peers collaborate to construct their search database — is the YaCy project. More info on this Wikipedia page).
In simple terms:
Turn the search ranking mechanism upside down by giving back control to who is searching and in need of taking decisions based on that information.
Achieve this by allowing the user to see, at all times, what is under the hood and to have the option to modify it, rather than achieving this by personalizing his results univocally or by differentiating them from those of others based on history, preferences or the social graph.
Recommended Curation Tools & Resources
*Available in the August CM #10 Premium Edition
Infinite Canvases: Discover six interesting information organizers that are built on the concept of an infinite canvas space in which you can draw, write texts, add images, videos and where you can group and layout visually such elements in any way you want.
Uses and applications for infinite canvases are very many:
collections
concept boards
mood boards
information maps
brainstorming maps and ideas graphs
multimedia guides
Discover Infinite Canvases in the August Premium Edition:
Get the details / Premium subscription
Curation Monetized: Real World Examples
Profitable curation projects available in the August Premium Edition:
Catalog of Top Email Marketing and Communication Examples
Handpicked collection of 10,000+ outstanding email messages and designs. It also allows the creation of personal custom collections.Library of Older Versions of Popular Software Apps
Updated library of downloadable older versions/releases of popular commercial software applications for all major operating systems.Digital Magazine Dissecting Film and Video Title Sequences
Catalog / Magazine focusing on *title sequence design* in film, TV, and on other media.Searchable Catalog of Professional Logos
Archive of 3000+ logos with more added daily. Search by industry, character, styles and more. Save logos for research and inspiration.Directory of Best Online Tools and Resources
Curated library of useful tools and online resources across different categories.Library of Summarized Books
Short-sized summaries of business and personal development books that can be either read, listened to or watched.
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
.
The fact that you spent almost ten years in this niche encourages me to persevere and stay in it for the long run.