Curation Nation: How to Win in a World Where Consumers are Creators

Book description

Business Leaders Are Buzzing About Curation Nation

“An indispensible guide to the brave new media world.”
—Arianna Huffington, editor in chief, the Huffington Post

“Gives me hope for the future of the Information Age. Rosenbaum argues for the growing importance of people—creative, smart, hip—who can spot trends, find patterns, and make meaning out of the flood of data that threatens to overwhelm us.”
—Daniel H. Pink, New York Times bestselling author of Drive

“A testament to the strategic mind of a genius and a road map for developing engaging consumer experiences by curating content around your brand.”
—Bonin Bough, Global Director, Digital and Social Media, PepsiCo

“Perfectly on-trend—an insightful guide to the future. So entertaining you won’t put it down.”
—Chris Meyer, author of Blur

“Read this book. Embrace curation, and you’ll be ready to ‘crush it’ with focus and passion in the noisy new world of massive data overload.”
—Gary Vaynerchuk, New York Times bestselling author of Crush It

“Provides a wealth of real-world examples of how businesses can use the Web to give their customers a valuable curated experience.”
—Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com, and New York Times bestselling author of Delivering Happiness

“Our best hope for sorting the good from the mediocre in our increasingly overwhelming media landscape.”
—Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus and Here Comes Everybody

About the Book:

Let’s face it, we’re drowning in data. Our inboxes are flooded with spam, we have too many “friends” on Facebook, and our Twitter accounts have become downright unmanageable. Creating content is easy; finding what matters is hard.

Fortunately, there is a new magic that makes the Web work. It’s called curation, and it enables people to sort through the digital excess and find what’s relevant.

In Curation Nation, Steven Rosenbaum reveals why brands, publishers, and content entrepreneurs must embrace aggregation and curation to grow an existing business or launch a new one. In fact, he asserts that curation is the only way to be competitive in the future.

Overwhelmed by too much content, people are hungry for an experience that both takes advantage of the Web’s breadth and depth and provides a measure of human sorting and filtering that search engines simply can’t achieve. In these shifting sands lies an extraordinary business opportunity: you can become a trusted source of value in an otherwise meaningless chaos of digital noise.

In Curation Nation, Rosenbaum “curates the curators” by gathering together priceless insight and advice from the top thinkers in media, advertising, publishing, commerce, and Web technologies. This groundbreaking book levels the playing field, giving your business equal access to the content abundance presently driving consumer adoption of the Web.

As the sheer volume of digital information in the world increases, the demand for quality and context becomes more urgent. Curation will soon be a part of your business and your digital world. Understand it now, join in early, and reap the many benefits Curation Nation has to offer.

Learn more at CurationNation.org.

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. CONTENTS
  5. PREFACE
  6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  7. 1 CURATION: WHAT IS IT?
    1. CURATION COMES IN MANY SHAPES AND SIZES
    2. CURATION TO THE RESCUE!
    3. THE ORIGIN OF CURATION
    4. THE HUMAN ELEMENT
    5. WHO ELSE IS A CURATOR?
    6. CONTENT STRATEGISTS
  8. 2 THE HISTORY OF CURATION
    1. THE STORY OF READER’S DIGEST
    2. THE STORY OF TIME MAGAZINE
    3. CABLE TV IS BORN
    4. AN ABUNDANCE OF CONTENT
    5. THE STREAMING GOURMET
    6. SUSAN BOYLE’S FIRST BIG FAN
    7. EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
  9. 3 BIG-TIME CURATORS ON THE RISE
    1. HUFFINGTON POST AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE LINKED ECONOMY
    2. THE PUBLISHERS’ CONUNDRUM
    3. AN OLD MEDIA STAR BUILDS A CURATION EMPIRE
    4. NEWSER: THE PUGNACIOUS PROVOCATEUR
    5. USER-CONTRIBUTED CONTENT
  10. 4 CONSUMER CONVERSATIONS AND CURATION
    1. DELL HELL
    2. COMCAST MUST DIE
    3. LISTENOMICS
    4. ONE-TO-ONE CUSTOMER SERVICE
    5. PEPSI FINDS SOCIAL MEDIA REFRESHING
    6. TAKING CONTROL OF THE BRAND
  11. 5 CONTENT ENTREPRENEURS: THE NEW CURATION CLASS
    1. CURATING CONTENT: THE EARLY SEARCH FOR NEW MODELS
    2. ALL ABOUT ABOUT.COM
    3. THE FUTURE OF CONTENT
  12. 6 TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES
    1. PUBLISHING
    2. ADVERTISING
    3. SYNDICATION
  13. 7 MAGAZINES AND CURATION
    1. NEW YORK MAGAZINE
    2. MAGAZINES EMBRACING CURATION
    3. THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM
  14. 8 NAYSAYERS
    1. THE MORALITY OF AGGREGATION
  15. 9 WEB PLATFORMS EMBRACE CURATION
    1. MACHINES VERSUS HUMANS
    2. BALANCING OUT CONTENT CREATION AND CURATION
  16. 10 BRANDS: CURATING YOUR CONSUMER
    1. HOW BRANDING IS CHANGING
    2. HOW BRANDS CAN ADAPT
    3. BRANDS AS PUBLISHERS
  17. 11 NETWORKS: WRITING INSIDE A CURATED COMMUNITY
    1. BLOGHER
    2. HOW GLAM ARE YOU? ASKS GLAM MEDIA
    3. SB NATION
    4. HUMAN REPEATERS ARE THE NEW BUILDING BLOCKS
  18. 12 THE MICRONETS
    1. THE ORIGINAL MICRONET
    2. WEB VIDEO 2.0
    3. THE EMERGENCE OF MICRONETWORKS
    4. BLIP.TV
  19. 13. WHAT IS YOUR CONTENT STRATEGY?
    1. EVERYONE’S A PUBLISHER
    2. CONTENT CONSUMERS
  20. 14. FACEBOOKING THE FUTURE AND TRENDING TOWARD TWITTER
    1. ACCIDENTAL CURATION
    2. FACEBOOK
    3. FOURSQUARE
    4. THE RISE OF TWITTER
    5. MAGNIFY.NET
    6. FLIPBOARD
    7. THE NEED FOR HUMAN FILTERS
  21. 15. ARE CONTENT AGGREGATORS VAMPIRES?
    1. THE BALANCE OF POWER
    2. A SHIFT IN THE BALANCE
  22. 16. FINANCE, CURATION, AND PRIVACY
    1. THE FACEBOOK OF FINANCE
    2. WOULD YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR CREDIT CARD PUBLIC?
    3. THE DOWNSIDE OF SHARING
    4. BLURRY-EDGED PRIVACY
  23. CONCLUSION
    1. LOOK AT THE BIG TRENDS
    2. A CURATION NATION
    3. THE WORLD AHEAD
  24. A NOTE ABOUT SOURCES
  25. ENDNOTES
    1. Chapter 1
    2. Chapter 2
    3. Chapter 3
    4. Chapter 4
    5. Chapter 5
    6. Chapter 6
    7. Chapter 7
    8. Chapter 8
    9. Chapter 9
    10. Chapter 10
    11. Chapter 11
    12. Chapter 12
    13. Chapter 13
    14. Chapter 14
    15. Chapter 15
    16. Chapter 16
    17. Conclusion
  26. INDEX

Product information

  • Title: Curation Nation: How to Win in a World Where Consumers are Creators
  • Author(s): Steven Rosenbaum
  • Release date: March 2011
  • Publisher(s): McGraw-Hill
  • ISBN: 9780071762335