How to Think About Content Curation - 4 Emerging Strategies

If I had to pinpoint when content curation came on my radar, it was when Matt Drudge broke the Lewinsky story and I, like everyone, discovered The Drudge Report. A few years later I built my first company around curated content for specialized industries. At the time, I liked to think that I was channeling the spirit of Henry Luce, who started Newsweek and Life Magazine with curated content in the 1920’s and 30s.

By content curation, I mean the process of collecting, organizing and displaying information relevant to a particular topic or audience. Today, content curation is everywhere, even in places people don’t think of as “media.” And it’s accepted. It’s fun to see new approaches emerge and add value to people. Hacker News, anyone?

Like many media and startup folks, I’m convinced there are still tremendous opportunities involving content curation, but it’s tricky to conceptualize where these opportunities exist. So I wanted to share with you how I’m looking at the landscape.

How should we think about content curation strategies?

I’ve started looking at content curation strategies along two axes: who’s doing the curating (community vs editorial) and what’s being shared (link vs substantial content). The resulting matrix shows four main curation strategies that are emerging in the marketplace:

1. Community Link-Sharing #

This first generation of this category (top left of chart) includes community link-sharing sites like Reddit and Hacker News. Links are shared and voted on by the community. The best and newest rise to the top. Community members can comment as they wish. Membership is open to anyone.

Newer versions of community link-sharing are more focused and exclusive. One example is Quibb, a link-sharing site with a high focus on startup entrepreneurship. To ensure a high-quality, engaged audience, new members have to apply to join. The founder, Sandi MacPherson, is very thoughtful about nurturing and growing the community.

Another example is the Product Hunt newsletter I recently signed up for. It’s a regular email of links to new and innovative web and mobile apps. Anyone can subscribe. However, you have to apply to be among the community members who can share links. For this reason it migrates a little closer to “editorial,” but the sharing is still dispersed and community-driven.

2. Editorial Link Sharing #

Some information services provide a curated selection of links driven by a central editorial team (bottom left of chart). This is the model I pioneered at FierceMarkets in the early days. This approach works well in email newsletters serving niche audiences that have high information fragmentation and high information needs. Most services of this kind add snippets of valuable commentary with the links. For other good examples, check out Industry Dive and SmartBrief.

The Drudge Report is perhaps an exceptional example of editorial link curation. It’s editorially-driven, web-based, includes mostly links, and serves a very broad audience. I view the site often. But could this particular approach be replicated today without a legacy like Drudge’s? I’m not so sure. If you go the route of editorial link curation, I’d narrow the focus and look at email as your primary channel.

3. Community Content Sharing #

This category (top right of chart) includes services that are content heavy and curated by the community. I had a tough time thinking about this. Then I looked at my web tabs and noticed two sites open, Quora and Medium. Duh!

The best example of this may be modern blog rolls like Startup Edition, Medium, and this blog platform, Svbtle. These are sometimes a blend of editorial and community curation. Content that’s featured is often driven by a combination of community feedback (votes, social signals etc) and editorial selection.

Vox Media appears to be embracing a version of this strategy with the 310 blogs it folds into SB Nation. Likewise, Gawker Media now lets users contribute articles, and the degree to which they are featured is driven at least partly by the community response.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see more innovation in this category in coming years.

4. Editorialized Content Curation #

This category (bottom right of chart) includes sites that repackage content from elsewhere with a strong dose of editorialization. My favorite example is Upworthy. Referred to as “click bait with a conscious”, Upworthy is brilliant at repackaging other people’s content in a way that makes it super-interesting and -sharable.

Other examples of this include, I would argue, BuzzFeed and Business Insider. They’re brilliant at repackaging stories from other sources and turning them into listicles or slide shows.

The new Digg falls in this category too. This one is interesting because the original Digg was the penultimate example of community curation. Now, under new ownership, it’s editorially driven.

Personally, I believe the community approach is harder to pull off but more valuable if you can do so. Editorialized content curation is safer and has been proven out across more subject matters.

Final Thoughts #

This matrix is far from perfect, but I hope it’s helpful at a high-level. If you want to deeper, here are some areas worth probing:

• what types of curation work well in email vs web vs mobile, and how they interrelate
• what works well based on the breadth of topic and audience (for ex, can community link-sharing work among non-geek audiences?)
• what mechanics (like up-voting) and automated curation techniques are most effective
• the role of exclusivity vs openness in community curation

One final disclosure: This was all original content. :)