Curation Nation How To Win In A World Where Consumers Are Creators by Steven Rosenbaum

Curation Nation Why The Future of Content Is Context How To Win In A World Where Consumers Are Creators by Steven Rosenbaum

Steven Rosenabum is describing a major shift in how media is being delivered.  Consumers of media are increasingly becoming prosumers and creators of their own content.  People create a variety of sites based on their interests from cooking to baseball.  Steven Rosenbaum runs Magnify.net which aggregates video content on the web so many of his ideas come from his direct business experience.

A prosumer is a consumer who proactively chooses what and how they will consume.  A good example of a prosumer might be someone who buys green products, or only buys from the Better Business Bureau.  Increasingly prosumers are becoming creators of their own content based on what they are interested in. 

The tools of content creation are becoming cheaper and easier to get access to.  Social tools like Twitter, Youtube, blogs, podcasts, and other social media tools are easy to get access to.  It is not just the software and web which is becoming cheaper, people now can easily afford smart phones, laptops, and inexpensive video recorders.  People can use these tools to spread their ideas and opinions.

The difference between this book and other books is that Steven Rosenbaum takes it one step further.  He describes how to curate content, picking out and organizing materials for blogs and websites.  He even describes content strategy citing Kristina Halvorson's book Content Strategy.

Then Steven Rosenabaum talks about how curation scales with aggregation mixed with selective content on websites like The Huffington Post, Blog Her, and Linked In. This creates a larger picture of curation both on the small individual level and on the larger scale of big commercial websites.

None of the material is particularly new.  However, how it is presented is new. This is a solid overview of how to organize social media tools.  It pulls many disparate threads together to create a picture of a strategy to manage and organize social content. The book can be a bit diffuse at times.  This book would be useful for people interested in new media.

Daily Thoughts 2/18/2011 (the World in 2050)

Edward Lear Aged 73 and a Half and His Cat Foss, Aged 16 is a lithograph by Edward Lear from 1885

Daily Thoughts 2/18/2011

This afternoon I read some more of The World In 2050.  The author is describing how climate change will drive more people northward.  The arctic will open up and more water will be concentrated in the north in Canada and Russia.  Also Russia and Canada will have the largest remaining supply of oil in the world.  It is quite interesting.  Quite a bit of it is more than just environmental trends it is also social trends.

I have also been thinking about content management and content strategy in the context of books.  I think there are going to be openings as more publishers turn towards ebooks and enhanced ebooks.  I also think that more companies are going to be working on strategies to create large content sites for publishing. This will require skills in XML, taxonomy, metadata, and content mangement.  This is also part of the future of librarianship.

Catalogs will become more integrated and start including electronic content.  Librarians will have to expand their skils beyond books.  This is already starting with many information architects coming from a library background.  It is also starting to expand into content management where more collection oriented librarians may be heading towards.  Services like Blio from Baker and Taylor, Copia, and other social reading applications are large repositories of information and ebooks.

I may try and switch nights so I can go to the Taxonomy meetup on Wednesday.

Daily Thoughts 2/2/2011 (Content Strategy, Power, Ebooks)

Portrait of Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Francisco De Goya ca 1798, Prado Museum


Daily Thoughts 2/2/2011


It was raining and icy.  I went to work but found they needed to do some repairs because of the snow.  I ended up finishing rereading Content Strategy for the Web.  It is very much a book for web editors, designers, and strategists.  If you work with content, you will probably find it useful.

I also read some more of Power Why Some People Have It-- And Others Don't by Jeffrey Pfeffer.  This book has a Machiavellian quality to it.  It describes how to be both liked and feared in a work setting. It also explains why success is about much more than performance.  There is quite a bit on flattery and how to give people compliments.  It is a kind of uncomfortable subject.

Web Bits

Can a library lend e-book readers from the Library Law Blog.  http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2010/06/may-a-library-lend-e-book-readers.html

How to fund A Public Ebook Library With Tax Deductions http://www.teleread.com/library/how-to-fund-a-public-ebook-library-with-tax-deductions-by-eric-hellman/

Daily Thoughts 2/1/2011 (Content Strategy, Power)

Дача Чехова (експозиція4), An Image Inside Anton Chekhov's Cottage.




Daily Thoughts 2/1/2011

Today has been another quiet steady day.  I got some of the graphic novels for the Graphic Novels Club.  I am on vacation then.  I also made arrangements for the Womens Enterprise Development Center on February 15.  I am going on vacation for part of the week.

I did a little more work towards a grant for electronic devices.  On friday, we are having the seniors visit from the Armory.  I like to do a small amount every day on a variety of things from weeding to checking on programs.

I am going to reread Kristina Halverson's book Content Strategy for the Web.  I don't think I understood enough the first time I read through the book.  I think I can understand it a little better the second time I am reading the book.  It is the kind of book which is hard to understand on the first read.

I also read a little bit more of the book Power.  It gives some excellent feedback on why performance is not necessarily tied in with success in ones career. There are a lot of other factors that I need to learn more about.  It even describes how being excellent at what you do can be detrimental to your future.


Web Bits

February 5 is Save Our Libraries Day http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/advocacy/public-libraries/Pages/savelibrariesday.aspx

Planet App: Kids Book Apps Are Everywhere:
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/888450-312/planet_app_kids_book_apps.html.csp

The Perils of Literary Profiling from the Sunday New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/books/review/Nicholson-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1

Daily Thoughts 1/17/2011 (Content Strategy, What technology Wants)

 Portrait of writer Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin. by Ilya Repin, 1884 Oil on canvas. 88.9 × 69.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Daily Thoughts 1/17/2011

This evening, I read some more of What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly.  There is a real sense of anthropomorphism in this book.  Kevin Kelly attributes many characteristics of living systems to machines.  I don't agree with it in some ways.  The argument is interesting.  It reminds me of the idea that the fundamental building blocks of the universe at the quantum level is pure information.  There is a feeling that he is attributing the universe is a binary system.  It is the same kind of thinking that led Newtonian thinkers to think of the creator as the great watchmaker.  The book is very philosophical.

I put the book, The network is your customer : five strategies to thrive in a digital age by  David L. Rogers on hold.  I am also going to reread Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson.

I have been thinking a little bit on the concept of content strategy a little more lately.  I think I am going to explore it a little more.

Our library system has integrated its catalog with the White Plains Public Library which is excellent.  They have some books which may be very useful to us.  This includes quite a bit on metadata and other web information.  I put several more books on hold, some of them from White Plains.  Metadata Principals for All Librarians by Priscilla Caplan,  Exploring Web 2.0 : second generation internet tools - blogs, podcasts, wikis, networking, virtual worlds, and more by Ann Bell and Online community information : creating a nexus at your library by Joan C. Durrance as well as The manual to online public records : the researchers tool to online resources of public records and public information by Michael L. Sankey.

Web Bits

The concept of Content Curation is starting to appear on the web again.  http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2011/01/curation_is_the.html 

The idea is that so many people are creating new content, that it is very hard to keep track of it all.  Therefore, there should be curators for web content.  It seems a bit like a marketing ploy right now.

Daily Thoughts 12/11/2010 (Ebooks, Behemoth, Content Strategy)

Title page from “De Studio Literarum...” published in 1536 in Paris by Jodocus Badius and printed by Michael Vascosanus, illustrated by Orance Finé (or Orance Fine). The central woodcut shows a printing office; the twisted perspective is deliberate, and emphasises the turn of the printing-press handle. The words Prelum Ascensianum appear over the press, the name of Baudius’ printing house (Prelum being the Latin word for a printing-press).

Daily Thoughts 12/11/2010



I went through and checked my links on my selected links page.  They all should be working now. I did a little more link checking in the book reviews section.  There were a few things which I had to change.  I am up to the letter T in the book reviews section.  I'll probably finish doing it tomorrow.  It is sometimes good to go through and check links to make sure they work.

I finished reading Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld.  I rather like that the stories ends with the formation of an Ottoman republic which makes for excellent alternate history.  The tesla cannon was also a nice touch.

I put the book Bite-sized marketing : realistic solutions for the overworked librarian by Nancy Dowd, Mary Evangeliste, & Jonathan Silberman on hold.

I am thinking a little bit about the Holidy Party for the Content Strategy Group.  I think I have learned the basics of what content strategy is.  The content strategist puts all the content into a website where information architect provides the framework.  This is more than just being a webmaster or web editor.  It includes SEO (search engine optimization), metadata, curation and selection of multimedia (apps, video, and video) and overall design of what goes on the page where.  The person is also supposed to be able to evaluate and plan whether content inside a website will fulfill a specific need and be profitable in a variety of different web settings.
Web Bits



It is the Goodreads Choice Awards.  I really like Goodreads, they do an excellent job.
http://www.goodreads.com/award/choice/

Wish I could go to the Ebooks Summit, but not willing to shell out a couple hundred dollars right now. http://www.mediabistro.com/ebooksummit/?c=eb

Unprintable WWF File Format Goes Viral To Save Trees
http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/12/unprintable-wwf-file-format/

Daily Thoughts 11/16/2010 (Content Strategy)

Portrait of Brazilian writer Jorge Amado, 1997, Gilberto Gomes, Creative Commons Attribution, Share-Alike 1.0


Daily Thoughts 11/16/2010

Today has been another quiet day.  I went through and looked over my ordering for tomorrows meeting.  I also did a bit more weeding in the oversize books and checked the displays to see that they were in order.
I am writing the monthly report.  Part of this is collecting flyers and marketing material which we made.

I also got my certificate of completion for the Fundamentals of Acquisitions course which I took on line.  It is quite interesting.  I am thinking of taking the Marketing For Libraries course.

I plan on reading Life by Keith Richards.  I am looking at the November 14, 2010 issue of the New York Times Book Review.  I have not read it yet, but there is a quote on the words in the cover from him, " For many years, I slept on average, twice a week.  This means that I have been conscious for at least three lifetimes."

On the way home, I finished reading Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson.  It is a framework for managing the content which goes into a website.  This includes text, pictures, videos, and all the different content inside a website.  This includes a process of auditing all the different pages, analysing what is in a website to see that you have the right content, and creating an overall strategy for what should go into a website or other medium on the internet.  I found it useful as a set of ideas.  It is the kind of book where you can pick and choose what you find useful and let the other pieces go.

One of the things I have noticed is that people are starting to talk about the idea of "content curation:" which sounds very much like librarianship except for in a web setting.  The central idea is that the web needs people to make information usable and findable.  It sounds a bit questionable, but it does have its interesting points.  This fits with the increasing demand for taxonomists, metadata specialists, and managers of digital images. The most obvious place which I can think of where this fits is internet sites like the Library of Congress American Memory Archive, and the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.  Also the big websites like Google hire a cross between programmers and librarians to manage their indexing and metadata.

Daily Thoughts 11/15/2010 (Content Strategy)

Electricity For Everybody. American Book Poster.

Daily Thoughts 11/15/2010

I've been relaxing a little bit. I read some more of Content Strategy for the Web which is turning out to be a framework for what should go into a website, how to determine who is responsible for the content inside a website, and how the content should be managed. The information architect provides the framework, the content strategist puts the information inside the framework. At least, that is the way the book is describing it.

One of the ideas from this book that caught my attention is that we are all publishers the moment we put words up on the web.  We need to pay attention to the words which we put up on websites.  They need to be chosen with care.


Web Bits

Digital Underclass? Only If We Allow It.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/digital-underclass-only-if-we-allow-it/4333

Ebook Market Surges to $1 billion dollars from Mashable
http://mashable.com/2010/11/08/e-book-market-surges-to-1-billion-report/

Daily Thoughts 11/8/2010 (Content Strategy)

19th Century Business Day Book, 20 May 2008, EraserGirl, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Business_Day_Book.jpg

I put Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson on hold. I am also going to Content Strategy--New York Meetup on Wednesday featuring Joe Pulizzi who is the author of Get Content, Get Customers. http://www.meetup.com/cs-nyc/calendar/15216300/   This is an indirect result of looking up information on the information architect career.  The content strategy is about how to choose content in websites for marketing and sales.   I saw this along with social media researcher while I was looking at careers.  I am becoming more interested in where publishing meets librarianship meets the internet at an intersection.  It is places like Earlyword, Shelfari, Goodreads, Red Room, and similar sites which fascinate me.