Earlier this week, I wrote a post called “Content Curation Is Listening and Engaging” about the art and science of curating information. It is process o f organizing, filtering and “making sense of” information on the web and sharing the very best pieces of content that you’ve cherry picked with your network. In the post I referenced a video interview with Robert Scoble by Howard Rheingold that Mari Smith highlighted in a google + post. I’ve been reflecting on Scoble’s observation that curation is about knowing your sources, seeing patterns, and being organized.
I’ve been experimenting with Scoop.It, a bookmarking and curation tool. It allows you enter your sources – specific blogs or keyword searches and easily add them to nicely formated stream. Scoop.It also lets you easily share the gems you find selectively to other social networks. There is also a social aspect – you can “follow” other Scoop.It curators. That is what I have found the best – grazing through curated lists is like sipping a fine wine versus drinking two-buck chuck. (You can request an invite and if you really want one, I have a few I can give away – so leave your email in a comment)
Here’s a list of some fabulous Scoop.It curated lists that may be of interest to nonprofits.
- Debra Askanase’s Facebook Best Practices
- Stephanie McAuliffe’s Nonprofit Lists (check out the great lists she discovered from other curators)
- Aliza Sherman’s Crowdsourcing (She’s just published a book on the topic)
- Danielle Brigida’s Wildlife News (excellent example of how useful this could be for an organization’s content strategy)
- Sue Anne Reed’s “Trail Blazers for Good”
- Karen Deitz’s Storytelling
- Christine Martell’s Visual Storytelling
- Waqas Ali’s NGOs in Pakistan
- Howard Rheingold’s Infotention
- Giuseppe Mauriello’s Social Media Strategy and Marketing
- Buffy Hamilton’s Curation for Learning
- Robin Good’s Real Time News Curation
- Gary Haye’s Pervasive Entertainment
I’m curating several lists but my focus because of my book deadline is the Nonprofit and Social Media Measurement List. Are you doing content curation for your nonprofit? Tell me about it in the comments.
Kyle Coleman says
Would love to get an invite. Sounds awesome! Kylecoleman319@gmail.com
Waqas Ali says
Hi Beth, After using Scoop.it for few days, I am impressed by all the wonderful features it has to offers.
At Indo-Pak Peace Media(an online community to bring people of Pakistan & India together), from the very first day, our primary goal was to share stories which can bring people together.
Earlier, our major focus was Twitter & Facebook lists, along with Google Reader. Also we were following related tags on blogs. And somehow we could find related stories.
But I see Scoop.it has made it so easy to combine everything to just one topic and flexibility to directly share from your scoop.it account.
I personally think, many non-profits are ignoring curation, while it is important to update your community with fresh updates.
terry says
I would greatly appreciate an invite.
Thank you
Kitty Gooris says
I would hugely enjoy being able to sip finely curated content, and if what your sourced is anything to go by it is highly valuable “wine” indeed!
Thank you Beth!
nick trendov says
Curation is cool though it depends on the curator doing their job and their perspective matching your need. An interesting option is DIY Curation .
DIY Curation is where a curator helps people out, not by writing, but by posting links only in response to a question. The links are used to create @speedsynch Resonance Maps which simultaneously shows the perspective of the document, curator and problem solution.
Beyond FAQ2, DIY has a curator linked to the content used to tune perception in people that need a similar perspective to achieve their desired outcome.
Cheers,
Nick @SpeedSynch
Michael Wilson says
I’ve enjoyed reading your blog, Beth.
Our community solutions team also recommends content curation as a value added activity to our clients community managers. It doesn’t have to be original content to be valuable. This is especially truewith more focused communities.
I’d live a scoop.it invite. Please,send one when you have a minute.
Beth says
Michael, I need your email address, can you drop it in a comment.
Ziemniaq says
Love this article
Michael Wilson says
Hi Beth, it looks like you got it from the form. Thanks for the invite. I look forward to meeting you sometime at one of the upcoming Non-profit tech conferences.
Take care.
James Burden says
Hi Beth – I’ve just been getting into your blog posts – here and on facebook. This post is really useful – I’d love an invite to scoop.it if that is still possible.
Many thanks for all your efforts
James
jamesalexanderburden@gmail.com
Ivan Porto says
Thanks for putting together this useful list of resources! Would love an invite!
Beth says
Okay everyone, sent off the invites – and now out of them!
Kate Wing says
Beth, I wish i could search Scoop.it for topics but that appears closed to non-members. Is there a search feature for members? I would love to see if the ocean bloggers have any pages yet. I admit, I’m also a little confused by the two column format. My brain doesn’t know if I should go left to right or up and down.
Jeremy Webb says
Curation is a really interesting development. We’ve been researching social sharing, and one of the prominent factors behind content that gets widely shared is that it comes from a trusted source. I’m sure your readership understands that quality and not quantity counts when assessing a social network – we explain a bit about the maths behind social networks in our book.
The rise of curation tools is only set to rise. Pinterest is getting a lot of hype, and I look forward to checking scoop.it. Excellent curators will have great influence in the new digital society.
Shyam Subramanyan says
We are entering the age of curated web. The other dimension in content curation is engagement with the crowd. Check out what we are up to at Listly – http://list.ly. We are a list curation tool that leverages the power of the crowd to continuously evolve lists that can be embedded (fully interactive) on any blog or websites.
Michelle Porter (@MissionMusings) says
Thanks! I’ve never heard of Scoop.it. You can sign up for free now. I have followed your Facebook Best Practices suggestion – you’re right; it’s great!
Curating – it’s a new idea for me. I think many of us do it naturally, but aren’t realizing we are doing it. That’s why tags are important on blogs. I need to focus more on tagging on my blog!
Facebook is where most of my friends are, so it’s where I tend to gravitate, but curating on facebook is not very practical. Even the non-profit pages have been changed so that you first view what facebook considers your “highlights.”
Not all social media is practical for curating, so I appreciate this new avenue to experiment with! You can find me here: http://www.scoop.it/u/missionmusings
dikonews says
I have wanted to write about something like this on my webpage and this has given me an idea. Cheers.
Thomas E Ortiz says
Great article, you are definitely an amazing writer and this is a very professional blog. I will be sharing your article with my members today.
I agree 100% with content curation being the next wave on the internet. The amount of data that is available makes it hard to just stay focused on one subject and small curated niche sites are the future.
We created a share tool with our website so bloggers could do just that. Fly all over the internet and when they find something incredible it can be share with us. We also make everything a member publishes available in a RSS Feed.
Our focus is social media marketing, blogging tips, and anything to do with the big social sites. I would love to have you visit our site and give us your opinion. We are about 6 months old and growing fast.
Thank you for your time.