Organizing the Web

There’s a new buzz word making its way around the Internet: content curation. Have you heard of it?

Content Curation can be defined simply as the act of searching, grouping, organizing and sharing the most significant content on a particular topic on the Internet.

Source: What is Content Curation?

It’s becoming more and more popular for two reasons.

For creators of content (bloggers, for example),  it can be challenging to come up with unique topics to write about on a regular basis. Even when there’s something we know our readers will be interested in learning about, if we’re not terribly knowledgeable about that subject, doing the research and writing it up effectively can be as much work as writing a term paper. On the other hand, most of us devote a certain amount of time reading blogs and articles that are relevant to our target audience, and we can serve them more efficiently by simply sharing that information with them.

To a certain degree, we are doing this when we share something on Twitter, Facebook, or another social media site, but many are taking this a step further. New tools such as Scoop.it! are emerging that enable users to collect relevant information and publish it to their social media or blogs.

For consumers of content, content curation can also be a real time-saver. Instead of spending hours searching the web or reading through pages of chit-chat on various social media sites to find useful information, they can now count on content curators to find the most valuable stuff and pass it on to them.

Now that September has rolled around, many of us will find ourselves facing a busier schedule and a heavier workload, making time even more precious than ever. So, for your benefit and my own, I’ve decided to make content curation a regular component of From the Desk of Janet Barclay. I will still share news and original content from time to time, but at least two posts a month will be dedicated to great resources that relate to one or more of my blog categories. If there’s a particular topic you’re interested in, please let me know!

In the meantime, I’ll continue to write regular posts especially for professional organizers, posts about virtual assistance, and posts about introversion on my other blogs, as well as occasional guest posts elsewhere.

What are your thoughts on content curation, as either a creator or a consumer of content?