Content Curation World

HackDesign is a great example of content curation at work. The team of design curators behind this site, targeted at people interested in digital/web design, has curated the very best articles into a series of lessons and the top tools into a well-categorized toolkit.

Each lesson is per se a collection of annotated pointers to existing quality articles on the topic, and the tools are individually reviewed and organized across different application areas.

The official intro: "We've asked some of the world's best designers to help us curate the best and most useful blogs, books, games, videos, and tutorials that helped them learn critical elements of design. We're organizing them all into a digestible and iterative lesson plan so you can apply this knowledge to your own projects."

A model for anyone interested in creating a learning hub on any topic by curating the best content already available online.

Must-see. 9/10

Free to use.

Check it out now: https://hackdesign.org/ 

The curators: https://hackdesign.org/curators 

Movieclips.com is a curated collection of the best movie clips and trailers from thousands of films tha can be re-used, edited, legally shared and embedded on any web site. 

It is possible to search or browse the huge film clips catalog via a rich number of pre-set categories ranging from actors, to directors, move title, and many more.  by a wide number of categories all of the films available 

If you are looking for a specific movie quote, Movieclips can be invaluable in finding that memorable scene that would do perfect to complement your research or communication project.

If you search for a specific theme or word (e.g.: freedom) you can get instantly a list of films that include clips that cite that theme and provides all of them for immediate access.

Any available video clip is available in most cases in both SD and HD video quality, and it is possible to "trim" it to keep only a specific segment to be republished. A simple visual editor allows you to drag clip markers to establish the start and end of the part you are interested in. 

Any clip, can be shared directly to all major social media channels or embedded in a customizable player on any web site or blog.

Moveclips also has curated a gallery of Mashups, a TOP10 of the best clips available.

From any film clip you can access a relevant link to Netflix, Amazon or iTunes to buy, rent, purchase or stream that movie.

Movieclips is available online since 2011 but it looks like it is not being updated anymore. 

No registration or login required.

Free to use.

Try it out now: http://movieclips.com/ 

See what others have to said about Movieclips: http://movieclips.com/about/press/ 

More info: http://movieclips.com/about/team/

According to Ina Steiner on eCommerceBytes.com eBay has hired Michael Phillips Moskowitz to act as Chief Curator and Editorial Director and will be launching in the coming weeks its own curated collections features.

To see some of the upcoming curation features that eBay is going to offer to facilitate recommendations and trusted shopping among eBay 120 million active users, go and check out http://www.ebay.com/usr/ohjoystudio who is likely a beta user having already access to them.

"On her eBay Profile page, you can see her collections presented in very much the style of Pinterest boards."

Curated shopping collections are a powerful trust-enhancing method to help buyers share their know-how while helping others make more informed choices. eBay is only one among many other large online e-shops (Etsy and Amazon have both recently introduced similar features) to make curation features available to its users.

Interesting. Informative. 7/10

Full article: http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y13/m10/i01/s01 

Conceived and created by andré felipe back in 2008, Typo/Graphic Posters is a curated collection of "inspiring" quality posters with a strong focus on typography and expressive graphical compositions.

The works represented come from artists and graphic designers from all over the world and which "challenge type, colors and shapes to express a message".

For each selected author you can see an horizontally laid out collection of his visual posters, which can be clicked and enlarged, and commented via a Facebook plugin appearing at the end of the set. 

Comments. A great curated visual collection, where you can truly find inspiration at every step. Every single set included in it, has been rigorously vetted before being accepted. This is not something you can check, but if you look contained in this collection, you can tell right away that the quality you see is not fruit of an accident.

This type of content is so good and valuable, it stays evergreen even if it's not updated. 

When curating content, even if it is not of a visual nature, a curator should strive to achieve the same level of quality and long-lasting value of such collections.

Free to access.

Curated gallery: http://www.typographicposters.com/ 

Favorite sets: 

• http://www.typographicposters.com/chris-welsby/
• http://www.typographicposters.com/les-produits-de-lepicerie/
• http://www.typographicposters.com/majid-kashani/
• http://www.typographicposters.com/pedram-harby/
• http://www.typographicposters.com/sagmeister/

If you look at the industry in which content curation tools and services have had the most leeway so far, that would be positively fashion, and, in my impression, by a good margin over the rapidly growing education/learning sector.

The fashion industry has embraced digital curation wholeheartedly more than any other sector so far, because of its strong visual element (the same one that has popularized the curation concept thanks to tools like Pinterest), and thanks to the natural inclination that fashion customers have for picking, collecting and sharing their unique preferences and combinations.

In this visual collection I have brought together the most interesting examples of curation at work in the world of fashion. Tools, services, communities, brands and products, all working together to filter, aggregate, pick and create relevant "selections" for the infinite number of tribes out there.

Curation Tools for Fashion: http://pinterest.com/robingood/curation-tools-for-fashion/

Enjoy, share, suggest new relevant ones to add.

Clipzine is a web app which makes it easy to collect images from any website page and to visually organize them into page-based collections.

On each page it is possible to place as many as 24 pieces of content and to decide how large or small each element will be. The user can expand each imported element over two or more tiles and move it around to any position.

It is also possible to use one or more tiles to add custom text and information and to format it professionally.

One key practical use of Clipzine that can be helpful in testing out its capablities is its ability to create a visual magazine of any Pinterest board.

Just go to the selected Pinterest board page, click the Clipzine bookmarklet and select the unique Clipzine option to capture "all" images available on that page at once.

Once captured all the images in a "zine", click on Edit / Syling and then on the Styling button that appears above each page content. Now hover with your mouse on any image in the collection and experiment with the feature buttons that appear around and in the center of each image.

The final collection, called a zine, can be saved, published on the web, shared on social media, embedded on other sites or saved to a PDF file.

My comment: This is one of the very few curation tools that leverages a tremendously powerful variable: control of positioning and size of elements in a collection. This is very useful as it empowers the curator to go beyond the linear top-down list or newspaper/magazine sequence and to create a more varied "equilibrium" between the elements in the collection.

Understanding how to use Clipzine is not as intuitive as one would like, and the UI, thanks also to the presence of unpleasant and distracting ads is not as clean and straightforward as I would like to be.

Promising concept. Powerful visual control in the hands of the curator. A bit disappointing implementation and not so intuitive and simple to use (for now). 

Free to use. Ad supported.

Find out more / Try it out now: https://clipzine.me/

If you are looking for some oustanding examples of curation at work here's one that should not be missed.

A collection of collections, the Typologist is a unique site curated by Diana Zlatanovski, Museologist at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston  and Photographer at The Typology, and showcasing interesting objects and photo typologies that she has found around the world.

Check also her print shop at: the-typology.myshopify.com/

Follow Diana here:

• twitter.com/thetypology
• facebook.com/thetypology

Recommended.

In my humble opinion, Clipboard is the best capture and clipping tool for curation work that you can use today.  This is the real Pinterest on steroids. This free web app allows you to easily grab any text, image, area or full web page from any web site and to save it in your collection.

To be specific "you can clip text, photos, animations, videos, or all of the above mixed together. You can clip entire web pages or strip them down to just text. You can drag-and-drop images and text files from your desktop to Clipboard. You can create your own notes directly in Clipboard and save them as clips. You can also - if you are using a Google Chrome browser - bookmark entire PDF web pages (but you cannot clip sections of PDF files)."

The Clipboard browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox and the generic bookmarklet which can work on any browser is a little technology gem, making the capture work an absolute breeze.

Clipboard allows your collections to be set for public or private use, and it makes it easy to invite you other people that you want to contribute to your curation work.

Clips can be tagged, commented, annotated and shared with specific users (via mentioning their name handle). Clipboard collections can be easily shared on all major social networks, or embedded in any web site or blog.

On the display and navigation front good news too. Collections can be viewed in one of three possible modes (tile, item and list view).

Free to use.

Profile example: http://clipboard.com/LHSMediaCenter/boards

Board example: http://clipboard.com/LHSMediaCenter/boards/epicpoetry

More info: https://clipboard.com/

FAQ: https://clipboard.com/help

WordPress Plugin: http://clipboard.com/downloads/clipboard-wp-1.0.5.zip

Also available in the App Store: http://itunes.com/apps/clipboardforclipboardcom

Snowfallen definition: "to publish a whopping great story online that’s stuffed full of integrated multimedia elements — in the manner of the New York Times’ Snow Fall, the epic report on a brutal avalanche that was released late last year to much acclaim."

Whether you think that the SnowFall-like journalism format is a great thing or not, this new storytelling format characterized by long narrative texts accompanied by many multimedia elements, seems to see no stop to its growth.

Bobby Johnson of Matter / Medium, is not quite convinced that this format is always the best way to go, but besides his interesting pros and cons for the use of the snowfallen format, he has done a fantastic job of curating a great an "open" collection of all of the "snowfallen" examples already published out there.

The collection provides in a chronological order, "snowfall"-like examples essentially for the last three years, though there are a few dating back as far as to 1996. 

Excellent. 9/10

SnowFallen Examples Collection: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnWYxsUNHS4FdGVYMnpkdGdTNTU0RS1SXzktcnZwRWc&usp=sharing#gid=0 

The Public Domain Review, a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation founded by Adam Green and Jonathan Gray, is a free online journal collecting and showcasing the most interesting and unique copyright-free works available on the Internet. 

The Guardian reports: "...the site and its newsletter showcase the best and quirkiest texts, images and films the internet has to offer. 

...A model of digital curation."

The mission of the PDR is to "celebrate and showcase online material which is openly licensed, and thus free for people to share and re-use for any purpose".

My comment: A treasure trove of unique, rare and valuable pieces of content organized in helpful collections. A gate to discovery of otherwise unfindable gems.

Free to use.

Check it out now: http://publicdomainreview.org/ 

More info: http://publicdomainreview.org/about/ 

Collections: http://publicdomainreview.org/the-collections/ 

Newsletter: http://publicdomainreview.org/subscribe/ 

Key content sources: http://publicdomainreview.org/sources/ 

Fest300 is a great example of content curation at work. The site is a gateway to the most interesting festivals around the world, organized into several categories, from art and performance events, to music, health, food and religious celebrations.

For each selected festival a dedicated info-page curated by founder Chip Conley provides detailed info about the event, the location, accomodation and driving info, key takeaways, photos, video clips, ratings and things to pay attention to. Social comments provide also additional valuable info.

An excellent resource for world travellers, and a fantastic curation example to inspire web publishers and passionate entrepreneurs alike.

Free to use. 

Check it out now: http://www.fest300.com/worlds-best-festivals 

The Museum of Online Museums is an online project showcasing a growing catalogue of the most interesting digital museums and online collections of all kinds.

The site provides access to three main curated sets:

1) The Museum Campus presenting a short list of to brick-and-mortar museums with an interesting online presence.

2) The Permanent Collection which offers a second short list of online collections of particular interest to design and advertising.

3) Galleries, Exhibitions and Shows where you can find an infinite number of unique digital collections of all kinds. "...an eclectic and ever-changing list of interesting links to collections and galleries, most of them hosted on personal web pages."

The richness and variety of the digital collections included is amazing and covering the most unthinkable subjects: from grocery list collections to antique tuning dials you probably can find your own addictive corner. 

Free to use.

Check it out now: http://coudal.com/moom/index.php 

Check "The Curators" clip: http://coudal.com/moom/curators1.php 

INK361 is a free web app which allows you to view, organize, filter and aggregate Instagram pics into "albums" that can be shared on all major social platforms as well as be embedded on any site or blog.

At its basic level INK361 gives the opportunity to create a Gallery which contains all of your Instagram pics and which you can share as a web collection with anyone or embed in your site.

When instead you want to create a "curated collection" of Instagram pics on INK361, you head to the "Albums" section and you specify a combination of @username and #hashtags (up to 5) that you want to use as filters. At this point INK361 aggregates for you all of the pics matching your specifications and gives you the tools to pick and select the ones you prefer, letting you position them in a digital album.

Curated albums can be shared in one-click on Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, StumbleUpon, and more, or you can choose to grab a highly customizable embed code for your site.

My comment: While this is a web service clearly designed to support those looking to get some great prints from their Instagram pics, the "album" creation tool to curate, collect, organize and share/publish images from any account or hashtag while being able to manually pick, select and position   it's really great and it's the first serious tool I have seen to do effective Instagram curation.

Free to use.

Find out more: http://ink361.com/

Example of a curated collection of my favorite clouds pics from my own account: http://ink361.com/app/#!/albums/robingood/clouds*

Example of my embeddable Gallery: http://my.ink361.com/robingood

*If you're not yet registered and you get an annoying dialog box obscuring your view, simply click on the last few words in the text notice that appears and, voilà, it will go away.

If you were looking for a way to create a Pinterest-like board, that can integrate web sites, images, video clips and files, and that you can embed within your content, like this, then you should give a good look to LookBooks.

LookBooks is a web service which allows you to curate embeddable visual information boards in which you can organize all content types.

A LookBook looks somewhat like a Pinterest board in which you can manually arrange individual tiles and integrate multiple types of information items, alongside your notes and comments to tell a story or to contextualize the different items presented.

LookBooks can be easily shared, published on the LookBookHQ web site or embedded on any site or blog and can be easily measured in terms of traffic and usage analytics.

Free 30-day trial.

Paid plans (targeted at enterprise customers): $250-2500/mo

My comment: There is a long-standing and growing need for a curation tool, that while extending Pinterest style visual collection abilities provided the ability to manually arrange board items, to include information objects beyond simple images and to be embedded on any web site or blog.

LookBooks fulfills therefore a growing need that Pinterest may not be interested in leveraging yet. Unfortunately LookBooks has chosen a pricing strategy and free-trial strategy (someone has to contact you to get you in) that cuts it out of getting any early traction through early adopters and, as a consequence, I think it may remain a model for other newcomers to exploit more than a useful tool that I can recommend you to take on your toolkit right away.

Interesting nonetheless.

More info: http://lookbookhq.com

LookBook example integrated in an article: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/06/essential-content-templates-checklists/

Other LookBook examples: http://lookbookhq.com/content/#section=example

http://lookbookhq.com/content/gallery/

A great collection of key articles on curation prepared by David Kelly to support his ASTD 2013 session on Curation: Beyond the Buzzword.

The curated list includes nearly 40 selected articles divied into four groups:

a) Specific Session Resources

b) Curation-Themed Writing
c) Curation Examples
d) Additional Resources

Very useful. Good selection. 8/10

Full resource page: http://davidkelly.me/2013/05/curation-beyond-the-buzzword-resources-shared-at-astd2013/

Presentation on Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidKelly3/curation-beyond-the-buzzword-astd2013-21430067