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Will being a 'curator' become a job title to aspire to?

I curate a lot.

I do it for Indie Hackers.

I most definitely do it for Rosieland, in the form of a Notion and weekly newsletter.

I often say that Ministry of Testing worked because I spent so much time curating things too, to share and for my own business research purposes.

I know many of us are curators, some making money from it, some with it being their specific job.

But I'd love to see more of it.

When you think of curation, who or what does it make you think about?

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    My own view is: yes.

    The amount of content out there is not going to stop growing. Think of all the people who don't have fast internet connections yet.

    The amount of content already out there is enormous. Think of how many tweets exist already, and how much wisdom there is to be sifted through.

    We live in the age of information overload.

    Who's going to save us? Curators.

    I'm already crying out for some kind of service, product or person who can slash the time I spend looking through useless content on platforms like Facebook and Twitter (not IH ;) for the good stuff.

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      Shameless plug here:

      If you are looking for a curated database of all types of strategies posted by actual founders, you can check out my site: GrowthHunt.co

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        Your website on mobile sucks

        1. 1

          I'll work on it! Thanks

  2. 1

    I really enjoy curating and collecting information. I have this practice since I started to work. I love to see information being organized and am happy to share with friends :)

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    I fully agree.

    I am currently exploring whether there is already room for a platform where everyone can be a curator. Regardless of the channel where the content is located:
    https://100channels.co

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    it's already happening.

    ... lol.

    i mean, i graduated in / from a college of "library" sciences. ... spent much of my undergrad in those courses. this is what curation has been.

    a librarian is an elevated art and science... it really does take an immense set of skills... and the librarians i know are some of the most intelligent creatures i've ever encountered... but they are generally disinterested in "success" as usually understood.

    ... they are noble creatures.

    ... a "content curator" as i've thought about it digitally is like the next iteration of (digital) library science; a must-have skill and role for every organization.

    ... i've already hired one on my team.

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    Would love to see more curators selling a part of their 2nd brain, I wrote about it few weeks ago 👇👇

    https://eliotc.substack.com/p/the-2nd-brain-marketplaces

  6. 1

    Yeah Rosie. Curation is a very important job. I run simple SaaS Directories and my job also seems to be a kind of curation job and I love it. Good luck to you.

  7. 1

    I spend a lot of time curating.

    I gather links on my daily linkblog, and publish a weekly newsletter about javascript, tech and web development. Latest special edition just out :)

    I like doing it, but I always viewed it as a way to learn web development rather than a profession. I want to be building websites, not just writing about them.

    So far it’s not generating any revenue, but taking lots of time. Hopefully I’ll get sponsors and patreons in the future.

    I think it would be valuable to have lots of people doing real professions also curating.

    If I didn’t know how to build websites, I don’t think my newsletter would have good content.

  8. 1

    About 10 years ago, I used to buy weekly issues about what's new on the internet, IT tips, ect.

    I think what curators do today is similar to that. But instead as a company, they are individuals as well.

    Sometimes I think news paper is not dead, but has evolved into these curation letters

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    I totally agree with you. I see for sure curation becoming a Content/Marketing related jobs in this new era where great companies start to build their own Media departments. The catch with curation is to find the perfect balance point between information overload and obscure sources. A curation newsletter for instance, could be a great thing to build - if about a very narrow niche.

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    For me, the main value prop of paying for curation is knowing I'll have good resources without spending lots of time finding them myself.

    What is the hardest part about doing curation? What is something people can do to be better curators themselves?

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      Im not sure it’s realistic to expect others to find resources for you as a paid activity.

      There’s a conflict of interests, because it’s in your interest to keep that person curating rather than pursuing their passion.

      I’m not convinced that curation should be more than a hobbie in most cases.

  11. 1

    Artificial intelligence and automation will greatly reduce the need for human curators. Given the choice I'd pay for an engineer to keep making the software smarter instead of hiring dozens of human curators. Also, if a new category needs to be created, a software can review and re-classify millions of articles within hours. A human would complain, and certainly be bored, because she has to do the same job again—and it would take months.

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      To be valuable, content curation should be personal. I don't see any value in getting a number of links suggested by AI. I want someone to tell me why I should read it and why it pertains to me. It's the personalized context of content curation between the author and the reader that makes a world of difference. Good luck doing that with AI in the foreseeable future.

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        It can be done easily by following the way a human does the curation... There are patterns in the way the curation is done that a software can copy. Also you are not competing with a machine, but with a human plus a machine. The end result can come from a human, to make the final output more original.

        Data is not processed once but goes through a series of processes, with specialized software making some changes to improve the result, like factory work. The last stage is the human being who just makes a few changes.

        However, anything that involves images will likely be very hard for a machine. The human brain can understand and analyze complex pictures at lighning speed, while software can't see the nuances.

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          Also, search engines like Google have made fully automated curation quite popular.

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            That’s a lot of theory. Apple News is curated and 100% human, there’s a great article on the NYT explaining why they went humans over machines. Human-driven curation still has a long life ahead before AI can take over. Most of the software out there is built like crap, let’s start with that before biting on the AI prophecy...

            https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/apple-news-humans-algorithms.html

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