The Latest Personal Publishing Trend is Curation

The media landscape has shifted dramatically in a short period of time. In the old days, as recently as 2003 or so, most of the content we consumed was filtered, vetted, assembled and published by professional editors working for media companies. The process was generally the same whether they worked at a newspaper, magazine, TV or radio station. Those professional editors were usually trained and educated in editorial process and often developed some level of topical expertise. The material these editors produced constituted the majority of what we saw and heard. The material was concentrated in the hands of a few media companies. For example, there are about 1,200 TV stations in the U.S. and 4 major TV networks. These, along with a few cable channels, represented what we watched. Throw in your local newspaper and a couple of radio stations and a couple of favorite magazines and you had each person’s media sources. Back then, a person might consume information from 20 or 30 total sources.

Then things changed dramatically with the Internet. First, blogging software became popular which allowed anyone to become a blogger. Bloggers became editors much to the chagrin of the professional editor community. It was easy to blog; all you needed was to download some free open-source software and spend a little time creating content. While most bloggers make little money from their blogs, some of the top producers make healthy livings from their blogs. In 2003 Google acquired Blogger, a top blogging software platform. People started following blogs. The RSS (really simple syndication) technology allowed people to subscribe to a blog via a reader. Consumers loved the fact that they could subscribe to whole groups of blogs around their interest. Blogging became very popular. Technorati estimated there were over 200 million blogs at the beginning of 2009.

Things have evolved yet again. While blogs remain super popular there is a new breed of publishing system evolving that allows people to express themselves in new and easy ways. Somewhat similar to Blogger and WordPress and similar blog systems are new entrants such as Tumblr that allow users to create a sort of mini blog. These simpler blogs tend to focus on pictures (you’ll find stunning imagery on Tumblr) and ease of use. In fact, many integrate directly with your phone allowing you to blog on the go. Another platform focused on imagery is Pinterest which allows users to “pin” photos they like into “boards.” Like Tumbler, you’ll find exceptional images on Pinterest. And similar to Twitter, the text associated with the images is generally very short.

The terminology has changed as well. For the last 7 or 8 years they were known as bloggers. Now the term is “curator.” Often you’ll find people who curate information not just on a blog, but on several locations. They will have a presence on Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, a blog, StumbleUpon and more. The new platforms allow curators to pull together beautiful, useful and informative material for everyone’s free consumption.

Valerie writes frequently on home décor topics for StylishHome where you can find top quality brands such as Calphalon. She follows top curators such as Michael to spot the latest trends in design and style.

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