Trending Worldwide : Media Curation

Newspaper Publishing, a dying industry?

Do you also wonder what Paper.li is? Or does everyone know already, except me 10 minutes ago?

I got curious about it after some of my blogs were featured on several online newspapers, some of which even landed as headline news stories! At first, I was wondering how the Publishers were able to find my links although I already have a hint that it could be from my Tweeter account where I promote my blogs' links and also where I get the notifications that I've been featured. But then again, the Publishers were not on my tweeter's list of followers so I thought either they found it on my tweets with hash tags or the blogs were actually really good (Ha! Seriously, you're shameless! LOL!). Whatever the reason, I was really happy about it because it means there's a new avenue for my blogs to reach a wider readership and it's even in a daily newspaper format! So I am very appreciative each time I get a promo tweet like this, "Book Beat is out! http://bit.ly/bjYqTN ▸ Top stories today via @mcloanpro...."  Therefore, I always make it a point to be gracious by retweeting and replying my thanks to the Publishers (although I know now that the notifications could be automated which is why the publishers don't usually reply to my thanks. Oh well!).




But I want to know how it works so I did some snooping and here's what I got:

Paper.li is has been in circulation since April of 2010 so blogging about it maybe old news but hey, I may have some fresh insights, right? :P

Their "A (very) short introduction" on their website defined their service as a "content curation service." 

An Orphan Article (few or no other articles link to it) in Wikipedia further defines media curation as follow:

"Media Curation is the emerging trend toward integrating and pondering media content using a mix of machine and human resources. The practice includes Aggregation (gathering) and Curation (sorting, categorizing, art directing, and presenting) such that material from multiple sources creates a unique editorial experience for readers/visitors."

So Paper.li sweeps and extracts from Tweeter (and also from public posts on Facebook) the stream of million links, videos and photos that come in by the minute then analyze and rank them (per topic) to create the paper.  Signing up is FREE and and voila, you're a publisher!

However, there are some issues on ethics with regards to media and content curation. Mostly based on the traditional print publishing and journalism practice wherein the writer submits his story and gets the credit for his work by having his byline on the prints. The byline vouches for the truthfulness and originality of the writer's story. The section editor, editor-in-chief and the publisher likewise share these responsibilities by editing, approving and publishing the story for circulation and distribution. Thereby, in an event that the story is legally contested to be false and malicious, a libel suit is filed against the three namely the writer, the editor-in-chief and the publisher. Therefore, there is clear accountability and also credit.




Contrary to the above, media or content curation (blog, video, photo, audio, text or any content) could be done without the prior approval or even the knowledge of the original creators. The materials could be downloaded or copied and re-published without giving credit to whom it is due. The material could be edited, altered even twisted and later on claimed to be someone else's original. The curated materials, when presented in a much organized manner such as a newspaper or magazine format could also be used for profit by the media curator by capitalizing on the contents to get paid advertisements! 

Internet Super Highway

Nevertheless, with the flood of information being uploaded, downloaded and shared in the web every minute, there is no way to monitor, much more, police this practice. There isn't even a law prohibiting it, except for piracy which is totally a different case.




Yet from the given definition above, are we not all content curators in some way? If you share videos from YouTube to your Facebook friends then you are a curator. If you Retweet a link, then you are promoting someone else's material, therefore you are practicing curation. Copying a photo from Photobucket and saving it in your album for uploading in you blog, is also content curation. It's all about information gathering and sharing it to your network to build friendship, trust or even commerce. But your audience, visitors or readers can only be interested in certain types of information and could not digest everything available on the web! So you sift, search and filter to get the information you think might interest them and share it. If a tool or service is provided to make this process easier, then so much the better. I think content curation's advantages far outweighs its critics and cynics' ethical concerns.

Cybergoth Fashion

In this Information Era, content (information) has both been the prime commodity and currency. While it is true, that the source may suffer devaluation if the traffic has been rerouted, the fact still remains that sharing of information now almost travel in a speed of light. Access  to information has been revolutionized and now free for all!

The Computer Age has bred a hierarchy of cyberspace species adroitly traversing the terrain of the Information Superhighway and the stronger and wiser ones are dominating it. They exchange goods and services along the way via electronic fund transfer hopefully advocating fair e-commerce. Nonetheless, in this virtual ecosystem, somehow we must find the balance of symbiotic coexistence just like in the "real world."