Curation Vs. Aggregation: Do You Care About What You Share?

Anyone who attended Future Midwest or followed the conversation surrounding the conference knows that "curation" is one of the biggest buzz words of the new media conversation. As the amount of online content continues to grow, we can provide value to our communities simply by sorting the wheat from the chaff. For years the push was for providing good content, but the emphasis has gone from creating it to curating it.

Whenever I hear new tech appropriating old language, I like to think about how much of the original meaning is maintained in the new application. I won't extrapolate the entire OED excerpt, but the most basic and always-present term associated with curate, curator and curation is care. I'm not interested in policing new uses of an old term and pedantically critiquing misuse, but I do want to ask what we as new-world techies can bring to our curation from centuries of studied practice. 

If I send out the Jen Wright Daily with three links to posts you should read, but I haven't read them, commented on them, or even offered you a lead-in to what they're about, am I a curator or an aggregator? And more importantly, how long before my automated recommendations negatively impact how you view me as a reliable source? 

The age-old debate of man vs. machine becomes more and more relevant as we move into a world where machines fulfill many (most) human needs. However, "to care for" is still pretty safely in the human camp. Whether you're gathering news on API's or the funniest YouTube videos, your human-ness is what separates you from a second-rate search engine, and that's what offers value to your community.

In my humble opinion, and yours is always welcome.

 

  Jen Wright, Human Content Purveyor and Yaffe Social Media Strategist